ICOS was invited to participate in the recent Spanish national agri co-operative conference in Valencia in Spain, where Commissioner Hogan was the keynote speaker.

Yet again the Commissioner underlined the importance of agri co-operatives in his plans for the next five years and said for him the 3 key advantages of farmers operating through cooperatives were in terms of; marketing, finding new markets, and negotiating prices.

Hogan stated that ‘Promoting producer co-operation in all agricultural sectors with the objective of improving competitiveness and strengthening the position of producers within the supply chain was a key objective of the CAP reform.’

He underlined the extension of legislation for the Producer Organisation (POs) within European law.

ICOS very much welcomes the Commissioners strong commitment to supporting the co-operative model.  We are working hard on the use of PO legislation to support the re-emergence of strong co-operatives across Irish Agriculture, especially in areas of the agri economy where farmers are currently not working together and are ‘price takers’.

We do though have to ensure that PO legislation is not used to undermine sectors were the co-operative movement is strong, and we will continue to work with the European institutions to ensure same.

ICOS also welcomes that a specific Common Market Organisation (CMO )Task Force has been set up by the Commission to prepare implementing and delegated acts covering public intervention, private storage aid, marketing standards and trade mechanisms such as tariff rate quotas, licenses and export refunds for dairy products.

It is expected that new acts covering these key instruments for our dairy cooperative members would be implemented by the end of the year.