Winter bonus payments across the main milk buyers in NI are to remain the same as last year.

Taking base prices at their current level, most farmers will receive a milk price in excess of 30p/l this winter before further payments on milk quality and volume are applied.

Dale Farm

Dale Farm will pay an additional 2p/l on all milk delivered during October, November and December.

It will also pay an extra 4p/l during the same three months on all additional litres above the volume supplied during the corresponding month in 2015.

Additional

Glanbia Cheese will also pay an additional 2p/l to suppliers for all milk delivered in October, November and December, with LacPatrick paying a winter bonus of 3p/l in October, 2p/l in November and 1p/l in December.

Lakeland will pay its usual 3p/l on all milk delivered during the months of November and December.

Aurivo will repeat its winter bonus payments from last winter by paying 2p/l for both October and November milk, reducing to an additional 1p/l in December and January.

Finally, Strathroy will offer suppliers an additional 1p/l on all milk supplied during the five-month period from October to February.

GDT

After some downward pressure on prices at the last five GDT auctions, prices rebounded this week albeit with a small increase of 0.3%, bringing the index price to US $3,323/t.

At current exchange rates, this converts to 34p/l before applying any processing costs.

Butter prices rose by 3.8% to US $5,954/t with skim milk powder falling 1.2% to $1,944/t.

Whole milk powder fell 1.6% to $3,100/t.

MPI

Last week, the Ulster Farmers’ Union published its latest milk price indicator (MPI), which increased to 33.14p/l, up from 32.76p/l in mid-August. Meanwhile, UK farmgate milk prices for July averaged 27.78p/l, up by 1.03p/l on June and 6.99p/l higher when compared with July 2016.

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