Over half of the Northern Ireland (NI) dairy farmers who completed an Irish Farmers Journal survey at last week’s Royal Ulster Winter Fair said they intend to increase milk production in 2020.
In total, 53% said that they plan to produce more milk, up from 49% last year.
That suggests milk production in NI will continue to grow. In 2018, NI dairy farmers produced 27% more milk than they did in 2010.
By the end of October 2019, milk output had increased another 2.1%. Total NI production for 2019 should finish at a new record of just under 2.4bn litres.
Half of respondents to the survey would prefer to know the price they are going to receive a month in advance, and another 26% would like to know the price at least two months in advance. Only 24% of farmers said that the current system should stay as it is.
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