GENERALLY when the Irish are in charge of agricultural events in Brussels, things go well.

The exception was Irish opposition to the voluntary reduction in milk production, which was part of the package agreed by farm ministers last week. Given that Ireland is one of the member states flat out to increase production, any plan based around reducing that is guaranteed to fail without Irish involvement.

That will not be forthcoming, since the plan was opposed by Dublin with the full support of the Irish dairy industry. That makes the scheme irrelevant, since any reductions delivered elsewhere will be more than offset by a surge in Irish production over its peak milk production season.

Over the years, that has been a single wobble in the Irish commitment to doing the right thing for agriculture. Largely, what suits Ireland tends to benefit other livestock dominated farming economies.

There is no question that the farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, who was shaped by Irish politics, is more farmer friendly than his predecessor, Dacian Ciolos. In a once-in-a-generation farming crisis, he is not in a position to solve the farm income crisis, but in general the fronts on which he is acting are the right ones.

These include CAP simplification, driving exports and trying to get the European Investment Bank involved in the long-term funding of agriculture.

This made it no surprise that a sheep group under the chairmanship of a former Irish Farmers Association president, John Bryan, seems to be delivering ideas that make a lot of sense. In a prime example of Brussels-speak this is described as a reflections group, but it is, nonetheless, raising practical issues.

It has had two meetings and will end with a third in June. Its latest message is effectively about lamb and indeed sheep meat in general, being a bit of a poor relation in Brussels. It wants to see funds ring-fenced for the promotion of lamb, particularly to younger consumers who have a negative view of the product.

This is because it is deemed hard to cook and fatty - both perceptions that a good promotional campaign could tackle. The group also wants to see more done to highlight the environmental contribution sheep make in areas where they are the only practical enterprise.

More importantly, the group has raised the issue of New Zealand imports. This has long been a contentious issue with the Irish, right back to when they and the UK joined the EU in 1973.

The sheep reflections group, or at least a significant number of its members, have raised the key issue of how New Zealand uses its volume based free access tariff.

This was originally about importing frozen lamb to the UK during the season when no fresh lamb was available. Now, however, it is about exporting high value cuts within the duty free tariff, which compete head on, even when local supplies are plentiful.

This has been encouraged by supermarkets, which despite making much of their green credentials, seem happy to use lamb transported from half way around the world to drive down prices to local farmers.

Whether this group is able to secure any change of approach by the commission is doubtful. The UK government would oppose any change - and imported lamb damages the market in the UK more than elsewhere in Europe.

This is another issue being made worse by the economic problems developing in China. As with almost all agricultural commodities, including wool, it was a market that could absorb vast volumes.

As that market has faltered, New Zealand in particular has lost a valuable outlet for lamb, which is one of the reasons it has been targeting Europe more aggressively.

With lots of trade deals in the offing, including TTIP with the US, Mercosur with South America and a new free trade arrangement with Canada, agriculture - and livestock production in particular - is in the firing line.

The EU will secure market access for some high value food products, such as cheese and wine, but in return beef and pork producers will pay a heavy price, similar to that which lamb producers pay for how New Zealand targets high value products to supermarkets.

It is exactly what we would do in the same position - but that does not make the EU writing off the interests of a significant number of farmers in favour of a bigger prize acceptable.