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DAIRYGOLD, IRELAND’S LARGEST dairy farming co-op, has announced excellent profits for the second year running.
The privately owned co-op recorded operating profits of €27.2 million for 2014, almost level with the €27.3 million brought in in 2013.
Turnover was also up slightly to €848 million. Last year was a particularly volatile one for milk production worldwide with the price of milk dropping significantly in particular last summer, making the maintenance of profit levels especially impressive.
There is a cautionary element to the results however with net debt increasing by almost €11 million to €71.6 million.
This is related to the co-ops’s expansion of its processing campus at Castlefarm, Mitchelstown, and the redevelopment of its Mallow facility.
With EU milk quotas today finally being abolished after 31 years the sector is set to expand like a balloon in the coming years.
Irish milk production is expected to increase by some two billion litres by 2020 now that the shackles are off.
Dairygold processes almost 20% of the Irish milk pool at the moment, and its 3,000 farmers are looking to up their output by 60% over the coming years.
Things are going to be busy.
Co-op chairman James Lynch acknowledged that the end of milk quotas will offer ‘real opportunities’ and that Dairygold is ‘ready to take full advantage’.
“There are always events and challenges that will be beyond our control, but the fundamentals for the industry are sound,” he said.
Without quotas the expansion of the industry in Cork is set to create 4,000 jobs and a €450 million economic investment in Cork alone over the coming years.
Dairygold CEO Jim Woulfe still sounded a note of caution for farmers looking to expand at a rapid rate however. “Farmers should expand cautiously,” he said.
Many will have super-levies and higher investment costs to contend with if they go about things too quickly.
Prudence is to be encouraged.
Earlier, agriculture minister Simon Coveney insisted that the removal of quotas is “the most fundamental change to Irish agriculture in a generation.”
Now the shackles are off and the sector can start to realise its full potential.
It’s a great day for rural Ireland.
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That’s some jolly up for the lads
They might learn what a real riot is
I thought Gardai were understaffed. But any opportunity to impress our EU masters and hey presto we find 56 that are not needed.
Jesus can we not comment on any article now……the CAMHS article below….Tipperary branch told my 16 year old unless your going to kill yourself, we can’t help you……I had to bring my daughter to G.P 8 times in a couple of months and paid for private counselling…but hey ho there’s an endless pit of money for anyone that’s not Irish…
@Clare Power: Just walk into the IPAS office, say you’re from Georgia and lost your passport. Tell them you’re being victimized because you’re gay. Hey presto, free medical card!
@YKwkSIqW: it would be funny if it wasn’t the truth
@Clare Power: It’s complete lunacy.
@Clare Power: Hope things work out fir you and your family and you get the support required
@F T: sorted now thank God
@Clare Power: piss poor this Journal
@Clare Power: my daughter went through the CHAMS system for a number of years. She got absolutely nothing from it. Constant waiting, then cancellations, sometimes within a half hour of her appointment. It’s a total train crash.
The French police will eat them alive. And they’ll show them how to be real police
I hope they’ll get a good orientation course. They’ll need to know where to get chips after hours and where they can scab freebies.
Could we get a dig out in Dublin from the gendarme
They don’t need them at the Portal now
Law & Order in complete tatters at home, yet the Garda Siochana are able to send 56 Gardai to France. I recall an incident last year where a young female student was being assaulted in broad daylight by a male & other students couldn’t get anyone to come out from the Divisional HQ 10 mins away. Sadly the Gardai Siochana has become politicized & these type of ventures along with incidents such as punishing a Garda for giving a bike to an elderly man or hitting innocent people with batons in Newtown only serve to alienate the public even further. All just, to look good in Europe.
This is great in theory but can’t imagine that the Irish Po Po have the competence to police an event of such magnitude. They go into hiding at the best times. Key stone cops. “Dig out”
It’s great to see EU countries helping each other in so many ways
Probably for the best as the Irish ferals are throwing a tantrum when the law gets applied to them.
Isn’t France the country who wants to send troops on the ground in Ukraine? But needs foreign nations to lend a hand to secure France during the Olympics? That country and its boytoy president are a joke.
@Ryan Hulin (ryansjourneys): drag us along with them headcase
What they going to do, hit people with a breakfast roll?
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