The General Assembly of the European Milk Board (EMB) took place last week, focusing on attracting and supporting a young generation of dairy farmers.
The EMB is a representative body for dairy farmer organisations in Europe. Its Irish representative is the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA).
At last week’s assembly, dairy farmer delegations from across Europe discussed how to make the sector profitable in order to attract young people towards agriculture.
Young dairy farmers were represented at the meeting, and participated in a key discussion titled ‘What is important for young farmers’, which allowed them to outline their priorities and points of view.
The meeting was also addressed by Pierre Bascou, a senior official in the European Commission’s directorate-general (DG) for agriculture (a DG is the commission’s equivalent to a government department).
He outlined some of the commission’s policies in relation to young farmers, and measures to improve the position of primary producers.
Danish dairy farmer Kjartan Poulsen, president of the EMB, summarised the group’s demands as “a fresh policy for young people for a vibrant sector”.
Poulsen said that the agriculture sector needed to create “economic and social prospects” in order to motivate the next generation to join the sector and to keep farmers of all ages active in production.
He said that the sector is not currently characterised by vitality, but rather by “constant, highly justified protests by socially marginalised farmers”.
Meanwhile, EMB Vice-president and German farmer Elmar Hannen said: “We practice one of the most important and, in fact, one of the most beautiful professions. But there are absolutely no economic or social prospects, which is a heavy burden to shoulder and this means that the next generation does not dare enter this sector”.
According to Hannen, this not only affects farmers, but is also “severely damaging” for society as a whole, as the “foundation for stable, profitable food production in Europe is crumbling”.