The EU Commission has confirmed the sale of Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) out of intervention next month. The date suggested for the first tender is 13 December. This will be followed by two tenders per month from January 2017. The total volume eligible for sale will be limited to just over 22,000t “to see how markets react”, sources have said.

The decision was confirmed by officials from DG AGRI at the Single CMO Management Committee on Friday.

Some 334,551t of SMP has been placed into intervention so far in 2016, via fixed price and tender. Ireland has not placed any into intervention since August but placed just below 36,000t into intervention this year, a significant increase on the 1,843t the country sold into intervention in 2015.

The economic board of the Milk Market Observatory (MMO) will meet next Tuesday. It is expected that the Commission will give further details on why the decision was made to sell product next month.

Meanwhile, dairy prices continue to rise this month, butter prices are now 35% higher than this time last year, according to the MMO. The average EU price for SMP is approximately 20% higher than intervention levels at €203/100kg. Farmgate prices are also rising, most Irish co-ops have now set their October price which is higher than the September price.