The cross-border co-op formed by the merger of Town of Monaghan and Ballyrashane last year decided this Friday to raise the price paid to its milk suppliers for December by 1c/l in the Republic and 1p/l in Northern Ireland.

A spokesperson for LacPatrick said this was a year-end bonus applied to to all manufacturing milk in December as a recognition of the difficulties that producers are experiencing, but also warned that dairy markets remained sluggish and an increase in base prices was unlikely for some time.

LacPatrick paid 24.2c/l to its suppliers in November at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat, excluding VAT and net of transport and conditional bonuses. This will rise to 25.2c/l net for farmers for December.

This is the first time apositive price signal has been observed since milk processors began to cut prices in April 2015 as imbalance between supply and demand wreaked havoc on international dairy commodity markets.

Lakeland, Kerry and Glanbia decided earlier this week to hold their respective milk prices for December.