The original ceiling of 109,000 tonnes had already been doubled in April but due to its quick uptake, the European Commission announced its intention to further increase it to support EU dairy farmers facing difficulties with the agricultural markets.
The Commission said that dairy market trends monitored by the Milk Market Observatory show that there is still a need to re-balance supply and demand.
Support package being worked on
At the Council of Agriculture Ministers held on June 27 in Luxembourg, Commissioner Hogan said that "the Commission is working on a support package for the dairy sector, with financial resources if necessary."
He added that "any new package will, in addition to addressing stabilization and reduction of production, also have to be equitable in its treatment of dairy farmers throughout the Union."
Increase already in force
The increase has formally entered into force, resulting in the closing of the tendering system under which intervention buying-in of skimmed milk powder was happening.
The fixed intervention price system therefore resumes.
The detailed breakdown of the quantities bought-in under public intervention and/or stored in private storage per week and per Member State can be found online.
The increase in the intervention ceiling comes when the volumes of SMP bought up so far this year have already reached 296,525 tonnes, of which 218,000 tonnes are via "fixed price" intervention and 78,525 tonnes via intervention tenders.
This latter figure includes bids for 15,127 tonnes of SMP from 12 Member States, which were accepted by the Commission last week under the tender system at a maximum price of € 169.80 ($189.31)/100 kg (the intervention price).