Pembrokeshire Farmers promised Dairyco will be close to Industry
Pembrokeshire NFU Cymru members received an update from Tim Bennett, Chairman of DairyCo, the successor to the Milk Development Council, at a meeting in Agriculture House, Haverfordwest, recently.
DairyCo will officially come into effect on 1 April 2008 and will be the body responsible for using the monies collected from the statutory levy milk producers pay based on their milk production.
Mr Bennett promised producers that the new company will be close to the industry and flexible to ensure that it meets the needs of all milk producers. He said "It is an aim of mine to ensure that the majority of the new board are levy payers themselves and we have an important duty to ensure that farmers' money is spent wisely. DairyCo must address the needs of milk producers and more importantly, whatever we do it must be measurable and we must be able to prove it adds value to the sector."
Mr Bennett highlighted that Dairyco will continue to provide its much respected information on market conditions and consumer trends. Regarding research and development he said, "Any research and development commissioned by DairyCo must be directly relevant to farmers and delivered in a format that can be understood and implemented quickly at a farm level."
Pembrokeshire NFU Cymru County Chairman, Nigel James, also updated the meeting on the latest situation with regards to Bluetongue and reminded farmers that the vector free period which allows, under strict conditions, animals to move out of Bluetongue restricted areas will end on 15 March.
He also sounded a warning to producers considering importing animals from other EU countries affected by the disease and said, "EU rules prevent us from operating a total ban on imports from countries with a similar disease status to our own, however I urge all farmers to seriously consider the risks posed to our livestock industry from importing at this moment in time. A succession of import incidents have shown that the pre-movement testing regimes adopted in some Member States may not be as rigorous as they should be."
