Last April 1st, the end of a three-decade milk production quota regime in the European Union was hailed by the Government as “a great day for the rural Ireland” with the potential for agriculture in Ireland to move forward into broad, sunlit uplands with the opening of new markets and the creation of thousands of jobs in the agri-food sector. Today farmers in Ireland and across Europe are demanding that the European Commission set a new minimum price at which it would buy stocks of dairy products to help farmers.