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Early figures suggest Irish dairy farmers increased milk production by 3% to 5% in 2016, on top of the 13% increase in 2015.
This means Irish production is heading for over 6.6bn litres of milk. The 2016 increase would have increased milk output by over €60m at a price of 25c/litre.
Our early estimates of milk produced, gathered from a survey of processors this week, suggest over 150m litres more milk was produced in 2016.
This increase was delivered despite significant reductions in milk price.
In the second year post-EU quota removal, and the first full year of unrestricted milk production, our early estimates from some of the major milk buyers suggest the highest increases were between 4% and 5%.
Dairygold reports preliminary annual milk supplies up 4.1% for 2016.
Individual west Cork co-ops trading as Carbery report increases of between 4% and 6%, which cumulatively could amount to about 25m litres extra on the Carbery milk pool.
Glanbia’s figures were not available at the time of going to press but industry sources put estimates in the range of a 4% and 5% increase, which would be about 80m litres over 2015 supply. Aurivo reports annual supplies up 0.5%.
Kerry Group finalised recent December deliveries and estimates annual supplies are down about 2%.
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