Suppliers demand Irish Dairy Board sanctions milk price increase

DAIRY farmers expect milk prices to rise from the present 30c up to 32.5c or 33 cent per litre, following the Irish Dairy Board’s (IDB) next meeting.

ICMSA dairy committee chairman Pat McCormack said: “We urge the Irish Dairy Board to consider who it is they’re supposed to be representing when they sit down in the first week of July. Remember, without the dairy farmer there wouldn’t be any dairy board. The markets justify an improved price and co-op boards must deliver this for their suppliers

“The IDB must substantially increase its June butter price and make a concerted effort at ‘passing back’ the clearly evident improvements to the milk suppliers, many of whom are still operating under debts accumulated over the last 18 months and often owed to these same co-ops.”

Dutch quotations for this week are returning 37.7c per litre for butter/SMP and 38.8c per litre for WMP. The Dutch pricing mechanism incorporates the processing costs. The Irish equivalent would be around 33c per litre, which the ICMSA insists is the price its members now expect from the IDB.

These ICMSA demands come on the back of what looks like a positive outlook for the dairy markets in the months ahead. Butter and milk reserves are down, demand is growing and dairy farmers expect their share of the price increases.

As Pat McCormack explains: “There are no stocks of butter left in intervention. The euro has strengthened against sterling and the dollar, which has helped increase our volume of exports.

“There should be an increase in price and we feel that farmers haven’t received the increases that are evident in the marketplace. We want those increases to be passed back to dairy farmers.

“It is now time co-op boards ensured that those price improvements were fully reflected in the price paid to dairy farmers.”