CAP to bring more milk quota

EXTRA MILK quota available under CAP reform is likely to be divided up among existing dairy farmers.

DEFRA has begun a further industry consultation examining several options, such as allocating to dairy farmers entering the Entry Level Stewardship scheme.

The additional quota could also go to form a national reserve for young farmers or new entrants.

But many brokers say the simplest and most effective way of distributing the extra litres would be to pare it out among farmers based on the net quota held at the end of the 2005/2006 quota year.

Three parcels, each representing 0.5% of national quota would be distributed annually commencing April1, 2006.

Promar consultant David Gardner said: “It‘s not very much when divided across all producers in the UK.

“What worries me is the huge amount of bureaucracy this tiny amount of quota will cause.”

A 1-million litre dairy farmer would gain about 5000 litres, roughly 2 day‘s production.

The Dairy Group‘s Nick Holt-Martyn said that as the new quota would be issued on April 1, it made sense to allocate litres to farmers who were producing milk on March 31, and were likely to stay in milk.