Final super levy bill of €16.5m to exceed original estimate by 50%

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine now expects the final super levy bill to exceed €16.5m — around 50% higher than its May estimate.

While the EU fine was previously expected to amount to around €11m, the Department has now received its completed annual returns from Irish co-ops.

The overall level of milk deliveries for milk quota year 2011/2012 has been calculated at 1.05% above quota, having taken into account the adjustment for butterfat content and for the leap year.

The final calculation of the national position exceeds the earlier estimate by 0.36% (a little over one day’s production) due mainly to a significantly higher level of butterfat content in milk this year over previous years.

The butterfat adjustment is calculated by applying a standard formula to the variance between actual butterfat content in a given year and a representative content for each member state provided for in the EU quota regulations.

In quota year 2011/12, this national butterfat adjustment factor was 20% higher than in the previous year.

In 2010/11, the butterfat factor was just 3.5% higher than in the previous year.

The Department said yesterday that this increased figure will not affect the position of individual farmers, whom co-ops have already notified of their provisional levy.

There may be some downward adjustments of individual levy when flexi milk is distributed from the national reserve.