Paula Hynes: Back to school for cheddar - it's time for a cheese chopping scheme

One would think the schools in question would insist on Irish-produced food within their meals, but then it is not unusual to see what may look like Dutch cheese on your lunch menu in Ireland; one of Cork's major hospitals has been known to offer a similar cheese to its patients, so the curiosity in me needed to take a closer look.

The Dutch are very good at adding value to produce, and when I checked out the cheddar available in a Cork hospital, it seems it may well be Irish Cheddar after all, as that Dutch company only sources Cheddar from the UK and Ireland due to its quality - a sure sign of Dutch ingenuity that they can buy our cheese, package it into 20g packs and sell it back to us, they’ll even slice it, grate it, essentially package it any way you want.

Likewise, the Dutch cheese available in schools comes from a company that works with cheese agents who buy cheese on the global market; they slice and package cheese for customers all over the world while also storing and maturing cheese for a lot of traders.

The biggest question this all raises for me is why has the Irish dairy industry not cornered and secured this entire market within Ireland and ensured they can dominate the food services industry in Ireland but also further afield? 

Just think of the value it would add for Irish dairy farmers; we seem to have left the door open for other countries to add value to our dairy product. Irish dairy farmers have had a tough 18 months dealing with low milk prices and high input prices. 

If all this talk of adding value to cheese inspires you to become a dairy trader, then it is also worth noting that there has been great value to be had when it comes to buying Irish butter of late. 

Now before you think of stocking up the fridge to save a few euro, be prepared to buy a minimum of 22t and possibly even 44t, Irish butter has historically sold for a higher price than Polish butter, but in the last month, Irish butter has been offered  €350/t cheaper than Polish butter, with the Polish butter selling on average 100 euro a tonne cheaper than Irish. At the same time Dutch, Belgian and German butter have been offered to traders at a higher price than Irish butter. 

With me only being a mere dairy farmer, I thought it more reflective to have an expert opinion on the dairy market and looking at a report from one Dutch trader whose weakly report 10 days noted that butter was trading at €7,700/t and in some cases, €7,800 for fresh butter, they believe stocks in Germany, Belgium and Netherlands are running extremely low, cream prices are very steady and quotes for early 2025 seem a little undervalued and finishing by saying “only the price of Irish butter seems to be on the low side for November/December at around €7,250.”

Dairy expansion in Ireland has ceased, and the new way forward being suggested for the Irish dairy industry is adding value, but it has been nearly 10 years since EU quotas were removed and the Irish dairy industry expanded heavily.

Surely the roadmap for Irish dairy over a decade ago should have been to add value and maximize milk prices for Irish farmers because it certainly seems now like we are highlighting the fact that we took a wrong turn and are only now considering updating our old paper map to the latest version of Google Maps which our European counterparts seem to have been taking direction from for quite some time especially when they’ve been transporting our own dairy products back to us after making a handsome profit.

Blame isn’t entirely to lie with our dairy industry, though. Our policymakers claimed a major triumph for the environment in April of this year with 10% of food purchased via public procurement must now be certified organic, food which is available in prisons, schools, hospitals, government and local authority buildings. It sounds truly wonderful until one discovers that it could be imported certified organic produce and simply just a box-ticking exercise. 

With an election looming and a merry bunch of political trick-or-treaters due on our doorsteps, the greatest thing our next government can do for Irish agriculture is ensure that food purchased via public procurement is of Irish origin where absolutely possible and also commit that an urgent roadmap be made along with major investment to adding real value to Irish dairy, the reality at the moment seems that policy has led us on a path where it is more profitable to farm solar panels than it is to farm dairy cows. 

We are not just dairy farmers; we are employers, food producers, and multi-taskers, and we have driven the Irish economy through good times and bad.

The last term of government managed to add great value to a bale of straw, which has been a welcome boost for tillage farmers. The famous straw chopping scheme aided a shortage of straw available to livestock farmers, and now the scheme has evolved into also being a straw baling scheme.

Dare I ask, could we introduce a cheddar chopping scheme in Ireland, as it seems the Dutch are already making money chopping our big blocks of Irish cheddar into small pieces?

We have a new chief in town, and he has spent some time gaining awareness of the challenges Ireland faces. Simon Harris seems hard-working, very clued in and has made a huge effort to bridge the gap with Irish farmers this year.

It certainly looks like he will be our next Taoiseach; let's hope he has the determination to grab the reins of Irish agriculture and guide it on a course to being a global leader, as policy up until now has kept us trotting around in circles while our competitors have been galloping ahead and are reaping the financial benefits. 

With all the challenges that Irish agriculture faces, water quality, emissions reductions, animal welfare through livestock exports, the greatest way the industry can improve is when farmers receive a decent price for their produce, it allows them the scope to invest in new and better ways of farming.

Either our next government is going to lead Irish agriculture, or perhaps we simply need to hire in some Dutch ingenuity to show us the way forward so we can turn our milk into an extra few euro.