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Ireland’s main milk purchasing co-ops have underperformed when compared to their European counterparts, the IFA has said.
Citing the Dutch LTO European milk league which tracks the price paid by Dairygold, Kerry and Glanbia –IFA national dairy chair Tom Phelan has said that Irish co-ops are falling behind their European counterparts.
“It is clear that Irish co-ops have been doing a much poorer job at remunerating their suppliers than the European private and co-operative milk purchasers tracked each month by Dutch farm organisation LTO in their Milk Price Review,” Phelan said.
“The main three Irish processors are currently paying €2.25 less per 100kg of milk than the average monthly price reported by LTO.”
He said that Irish co-ops have also been “undershooting” the Ornua Purchase Price Index for the last six months, paying up to 1.5c/l less.
“Board members cannot depend on their fellow farmers’ hard work to produce extra constituents and volumes and short-change them this month again on milk prices," Phelan added.
“Farmers need that extra 1.5c/l to pay the massive bills they accumulated during 2018 – every bit of peak milk income must be available to deal with those debts, many of which are with the co-ops’ own agri supply divisions.”
Co-ops will announce their milk prices for June in the coming days.
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