NI Milk League: Tirlán takes back top spot for March

Having led our milk league analysis for the first seven months of 2022, Tirlán/Fivemiletown has returned to the top of the table, paying 38.91p/l for milk collected on alternate days during March 2023.

Helping the co-op take first place is a 1p/l weather support payment, paid in addition to a base price of 35.65p/l, which was down 3p/l from February.

Tirlán’s published price is calculated under its hybrid payment, where 50% of milk is paid using an A+B-C format and 50% under its conventional incremental system similar to other processors. The vast majority of Tirlán suppliers are paid using this hybrid.

At the NI average for butterfat and protein, and adjusting for cell counts and volume, this hybrid payment is worth 0.3p/l more than if the supplier chose to remain fully on the conventional payment system.

Milk quality

The March league is calculated for a 750,000 litre producer supplying milk at the NI average as recorded by DAERA in March 2022. Butterfat is at 4.19%, with protein of 3.30%, lactose of 4.79%, TBC 17 and SCC at 178.

Base prices down

Behind Tirlán, Strathroy slides one place to second on 38.45p/l. A 3.5p/l cut to its base price put suppliers on a starting price of 37p/l, which is the highest starting price across all processors.

Dale Farm also climbs one place to third with its base price boosted to 36.55p/l thanks to a 0.5p/l bonus payment, which is paid out on all litres over the last 12 months.

Aurivo jumps two places to fourth after the west of Ireland co-op cut its base by 3.25p/l to 35.25p/l. The Aurivo price does not include milk collection charges, although there remain a small cohort of producers where these charges are still applied. Lakeland Dairies slips two places to fifth, with Glanbia Cheese at the bottom of the table.

12-month average

Over the 12 months ending March 2023, Tirlán leads our rolling milk price analysis on 46.7p/l.

Lakeland remains in second, but the gap to Dale Farm has significantly narrowed after factoring in the 0.5p/l payment made by the NI co-op on all litres over the past 12 months.

Co-op averages

While our March league is calculated on a standardised litre, the fat and protein values used in our analysis will differ from those actually recorded by each processor last month.

Figure 1 uses the March butterfat and protein values supplied to us by each processor to estimate total milk sales for a farmer supplying 9.3% of their annual yield last month.

Tirlán paid the highest milk cheque, followed by Strathroy. Lakeland’s figure includes the average payout to a supplier under the co-op’s scheme to incentivise higher milk solids.

Read more

Farm payment delays ‘utterly unacceptable’ – Sinn Féin

Farmer Writes: red clover looking impressive