Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) deputy president Eamon Carroll has said that pressures around succession will "ease" when prices for farmers corrects itself.

Carroll spoke about succession at the Bord Bia Dairy Markets Seminar today (Thursday, March 27), and said that it is a "major concern" for a lot of farms.

A recent survey by the ICMSA highlighted a high amount of respondents (42.4%) who did not have a family member willing to take over the farm.

Carroll said that the sector is “very heavily regulated” at the moment and that, until prices change, generational renewal will "continue" to be an issue.

Secretary general at CELCAA (which deals with European agri-food trade), Alice O’Donovan said that succession is an "existential" issue at the moment, with the same question being asked all over Europe: "Are we going to have farmers in the future?".

O'Donovan said it is a "headline topic" in Europe at the moment, along with securing food supply, which she described as a "hot buzz phrase". O'Donovan added that if food supply goals are to be met, "there needs to be conditions".

"We have to provide conditions where farmers are not being suffocated with administrative burdens," she said.

CEO of GIRA Christophe Lafougere echoed these comments, and said that there needs to be a “clearer direction” for young farmers to "explain that there is a future" in order to make the industry attractive.

The seminar covered the introduction of US tariffs on Ireland's dairy industry, with the potential impacts considered to be greater now due to higher dairy prices.

Senior supply chain analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence, Eric Oak, said that trade protectionism is set to be the defining factor of 2025.

However, Oak said that this creates opportunities for trade within other markets, with the US trade deficit building at same time as the China trade surplus. US trade deficit within Ireland has reached $93 billion, up by 54% since 2021.