`Ireland’s farmers hampered by quotas`

By Hal Johnson
Herald Staff Writer

Irish farmer Brian Costello found just what he expected to find when he visited four Mercer County dairy farms Tuesday.

The 26-year-old owner of a 225-acre farm in Ireland said he found local farmers had a positive attitude about the long-term future. He credited their confidence to what he described as a free-market dairy market here.

Costello — a cousin by marriage of James Feeney, Wheatland Tube Co.’s chief executive officer — toured the farms while on vacation here. Mercer County commissioners and Barry Nelson, director of Mercer County Cooperative Extension Service, and Feeney accompanied Costello.

Costello, who has been farming his father’s large farm since 1995, holds a national award for having the Irish farm best prepared for 2000.

“I was impressed with their positive attitude and enthusiasm,” Costello said of the local farmers he visited. He said the farms were well-prepared for the future.

The tour included John and Judy Ligo’s farm in Findley Township, Paxton’s Irishtown Acres in Worth Township, the Minner dairy farm in Lackawannock Township, and Vandersteppen dairy farm in Pymatuning Township.

Local farmers’ confidence was evidence that dairy farmers should be free to produce whatever the market can bear, he said.

In Ireland, the government limits the amount of milk farmers can produce and subsidizes farmers for the difference between the quotas and the amount the farm is able to produce, he said. Costello said the government limits production at his large farm to 836,000 gallons annually. His farm could produce four times that, he said.

Costello said he has long advocated removing the quotas and going to a free trade market. “Americans and Australians are pressuring the European Union to drop the limits and go to a free trade market,” Costello said. However, many of his fellow Irish farmers are afraid they may go broke in a free trade market, he said.

Costello said a local farmer told him he plans to diversify the dairy products he produces and increase his production without increasing the size of his herd. Costello said he couldn’t do that in Ireland.

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Updated January 8, 1999
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