Independent milk testing is payment condition
David Thompson, Limerick county IFA dairy committee, told a meeting of the Limerick County IFA Executive that the planned change to payment based on the value of solids, less operational costs, must be accompanied by constituent testing of milk independent of the processor.
“We must have independent testing of milk, first, if we are to have the A+B-C method of payment introduced. Farmers need that assurance on milk testing and it should be introduced,” he said.
Michael Gabbett, Mungret, said there was a need to create awareness among producers of the fundamentals of the new system, which is to urge farmers to concentrate on producing milk with high solids.
“The cost of transport and storage is increasing all of the time and it does not pay processors to be transporting and storing high volumes of water.
“The new system is intended to compensate for the solids in the milk,” he said.
He said the C element of the calculation would have much to do with the amount of water in the milk that is not profitable for the society and the objective has to be to increase the solids that are the valuable constituents of the milk and reduce the amount of water in milk.
He said the situation needed to be explained better to farmers, so they understood the objective, which should benefit farmers in the long run.
David Thompson said that farmers remained concerned about the standards of milk testing, and about discrepancies that have been shown in surveys and pilot testing.
Mr Thompson did not see any reason why independent testing should not be introduced for all milk, which should be more efficient and give greater confidence in the system to farmers.
