The Northern Ireland MEP, Jim Nicholson, has received overwhelming support from MEPs for his report which calls on the European Commission to do more to help the dairy sector.

The European Parliament endorsed the report in Strasbourg this week with 510 voting in favour, with 154 against and 44 abstaining.

The report makes a number of recommendations to address price volatility, including calling on the European Commission to review the intervention price to put a floor in the market, strengthen the Milk Market Observatory (MMO) to communicate prices and market analysis more effectively plus tackle unfair trading practices in the supply chain.

Speaking after the vote, Jim said: “I welcome that MEPs from across the EU have overwhelmingly endorsed my report and are united in calling for the Commission to do more to support the dairy sector, I am however disappointed and frustrated that the EU’s Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan continues to rule out taking meaningful action to assist farmers.

“Farmers have been hit hard in the past 12 months due to a combination of factors, including; the on-going Russian trade embargo, increasing global supply plus weak demand from Chinese buyers - as a result prices have tumbled to unsustainably low levels.

“The average price paid by processors to farmers in Northern Ireland is just over 20 pence per litre, well below the average cost of production of 26.5 pence per litre. No recovery is expected until early 2016 at the earliest and dairy farmers cannot wait until next year to see things improve.” During the debate the Ulster Unionist MEP called for an urgent review of the intervention threshold levels and asked Commissioner Hogan to come forward with proposals to improve the MMO. Mr Nicholson also called for superlevy money not to be diverted to other areas of the Commission but to be used for strengthening the dairy industry.

“There are many long-term opportunities for the EU’s dairy sector but the Commission must use the tools available to ensure that farmers and the industry are in a position to make the most of these in the future.

“The Commissioner’s honeymoon period is coming to an end and he must take action now to support the dairy sector.”