Milk quality is paramount to the success of marketing extra product produced in Ireland post-2015. Often farmers are not exposed to the reasons why milk quality is so important and they often perceive penalties and bonuses as methods co-ops use to lower or increase milk price.

At the Teagasc milk quality conference, the message was sent out loud and clear – without milk quality we will not be allowed into premium markets, and we will be pushed out of niche products such as infant formula.

While high cell count can reduce the amount of product produced, which reduces efficiencies for processors, it can also increase the processing time for making infant formula.

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If high cell count milk is processed into infant formula it can cause what is termed ‘burn on’, which means a part of the processing plant needs to be stripped down and cleaned and this obviously reduces the amount of product produced from that plant that day. It would be the same as if a farmer had to stop milking and wash down his whole plant during the middle of milking – not alone is it frustrating but it would put another hour at least onto your working day. If this was happening often enough, very soon you would have to look at alternative supplies. Wisconsin specialist Pamela Ruegg says it is up to the milk processors to set the right targets and farmers will adapt once the signal and target are clear.

Our survey results show once again that farmers are paying very different prices for a wide range of very different milk hygiene products. It is up to farmers to use the results of the survey to find value for money and be aware that the cheapest price is not always the best and could be costing you in some other way. We need to look at these results in the round rather than separately.