Fonterra said the announcement today of Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) subsidies for US dairy farmers was extremely disappointing at a time when the world dairy market is delicately balanced. "This is bad news for the market and bad news for our farmers in NZ who compete internationally with no support or subsidies of any type," said Fonterra's Managing Director of Global Trade, Kelvin Wickham. Mr Wickham said prices had been bouncing along the bottom in recent months and news of US export subsidies would create more uncertainty. "Restarting of export refunds by the US sends a very negative signal to the market and the global community. DEIP will only have a relatively small effect on US milk prices and US farmer incomes, but it's extremely disappointing and potentially damaging to the world dairy market," Mr Wickham said. Prime Minister John Key has added his voice to condemnation over the United States' decision to reintroduce export subsidies on dairy products reports Stuff. Mr Key said "It's a very unhelpful move and it really runs a bit against the statements the Americans made that they didn't want protectionism. At this point we don't know how large the subsidies are and how much money effectively the Americans are allocating to their producers."
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