The west Cork co-ops continue to set the pace, with March milk statements showing they paid close to €4.50/kg milk solids. An early season payment on all March milk supplied to Aurivo means it is the best of the rest, paying €4.27/kg milk solids. The mainly western-based co-op has opened up an early season gap between the big players in division three.
The west Cork co-ops continue to set the pace, with March milk statements showing they paid close to €4.50/kg milk solids. An early season payment on all March milk supplied to Aurivo means it is the best of the rest, paying €4.27/kg milk solids. The mainly western-based co-op has opened up an early season gap between the big players in division three.
These months are crucial in determining dairy farmer incomes. Given the volume of milk produced in March, April and May on spring milk-producing farms, if processors keep price down in these months they can lift prices later in the season at a lower cost to the business.
Near neighbours to Aurivo are Lakeland and they are next in line, paying a relatively decent price just short of €4.20/kg MS.
These two have opened up a significant difference on big players Kerry and Dairygold. They both held March milk price. Bottom of the league are Arrabawn and Glanbia.
Difference
There is now close to 0.4c/kg MS of a difference between Division 1 and Division 3 – that’s over 3c/l in old money (1c = 13c/kg MS).
If for March the 600,000 cows in the Glanbia and Arrabawn catchment region got the west Cork price, there would be an additional €12.5m in farmers’ pockets.
The small Thurles based co-op called Centenary Thurles supplies most of its milk to Glanbia. March price for Glanbia and Centenary Thurles have dropped under 29c/l ex-VAT at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat.
Please note this is the first monthly league without LacPatrick which now flies under the Lakeland banner.
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