How much milk moves between Ireland and Northern Ireland every year?

In the last few years, more than 800m litres of liquid and manufacturing milk moved from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland for processing. This represents about 37% of Northern Ireland’s entire milk pool. The past few decades have seen the emergence of a sophisticated and integrated island of Ireland dairy economy under the single market.

Is there enough capacity in Northern Ireland to process all of the milk produced there?

In a word, no. Otherwise, well over a third of NI milk would not travel south for processing. To suggest otherwise is fantasy. There is a limited degree of latent capacity in Northern Ireland, especially in the shoulder months of the year, but it’s certainly not enough to process all of the milk. On top of this, we see no capacity for extra Northern Ireland milk to be processed in Scotland or the north of England in the event of a hard Brexit, especially when recent figures for UK dairy output in 2019 are showing a 10% increase.

What will happen to Ireland’s dairy industry (north and south) on 31 October if there’s a no-deal Brexit?

It really is an unnecessary mess. If the UK government allows a no-deal Brexit scenario to occur, it will result in the wanton destruction of all the successful dairy supply chains on the island of Ireland. It will also damage our critical east-west dairy trade – with cheddar being under most pressure. Economic work done by DII shows that there will be severe downward pressure on milk price in Northern Ireland because of the lack of processing capacity, which will also lead to an environmental crisis as there is nowhere to dispose of the excess milk. In the south, it won’t be as bad but there will be severe disruption to sales and supply chains.

Will there need to be checks on the border for any milk crossing from north to south?

We have a path beaten to Brussels on this. If the UK government chooses to crash out, the strict EU food standards law that underpins the reputation of our exports will kick in. This means there will be a series of checks on milk at the border. With over 90% of milk across the island destined for export markets, we will have no choice but to carry out these checks to protect our industry, particularly to protect the value-added specialised nutrition industry. DII is of the opinion that the regulatory checks will actually be more disruptive than the customs and tariffs checks.

What is DII proposing to alleviate this problem?

We are proposing that a temporary “island of Ireland agricultural regulatory backstop’”is immediately agreed between London and Brussels, pending an inevitable overall trade agreement in the future. Northern Ireland has long been treated differently than the UK for agricultural regulations, including for foot-and-mouth disease and BSE. Without agricultural regulations for the island of Ireland, milk from Northern Ireland will be treated the same way as if it was coming from Bosnia or Bolivia.