December milk supply is up over 20% compared with the same period last year along the whole of the west coast.

Arrabawn reports that early December milk supply figures are up over 20%, Drinagh is up 20%, Aurivo is up 18%, while Kerry Group is up over 35% for December supply.

Glanbia supply is up 12% and LacPatrick supply is up 12.5%.

There are two caveats – milk supply is very small for December so percentages can be misleading and the European Commission’s EU reduction scheme was up and running for December 2017 which artificially reduced volumes collected.

The rest of the west Cork co-ops are up by between 5% and 7%. In December 2016, Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures show that processors took in 177.6m litres of milk.

Winter milk bonus

Meanwhile, the Irish Farmers Journal understands that the board of Glanbia met on Wednesday to look at a proposed revision of how its winter milk bonus scheme works.

In Glanbia, a historic set winter bonus value per farm is available to winter suppliers. In the past, suppliers had to deliver 5% of their annual supply in the winter months but with quota removal some farmers were achieving all their winter bonus by October and November with three months of the winter still to go so the 5% limit was not enforced. Currently, the bonus values are set at 7c/l in October, 9c/l in November, 10c/l in December, 9c/l in January and 7c/l in February.

Lakeland

In the Republic of Ireland, Lakeland Dairies has a winter milk scheme linked to peak volumes delivered, which provides for 3/cl in November and 5c/l in December, January and February.

Lakeland will pay suppliers in Northern Ireland 3p/l in November and 3p/l in December.

LacPatrick

LacPatrick will pay its suppliers in the Republic of Ireland a winter bonus of 3c/l for November and 3c/l for December, conditional on 50% of May supply.

In Northern Ireland, LacPatrick will pay suppliers a winter bonus of 3p/l for October, 2p/l for November and 1p/l for December.

New entrants

In Northern Ireland, Dale Farm has introduced a 3p/l bonus for new entrants to the co-op, which will be for milk supplied for nine months of the year, excluding the months of April, May and June.

Of co-ops in the Republic, Aurivo said it had no plans for a similar scheme.

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