The difference that existed between the top and bottom-paying co-ops for August milk translated into what a member of a farm organisation has described as “serious money”.
The chairperson of ICMSA’s dairy committee, Gerald Quain, made the statement after making a series of calculations.
“The rule of thumb that we’d work off is that every 1 cent per litre works out to approximately €400 per month for a standard 80 cow-herd supplying 400,000 litres.”
“If we start looking at it from that point of view, then the difference between those co-ops paying 31cpl for August milk and the top paying co-ops is coming out at around €800 for their August cheque.”
“If we go back to those co-ops paying around 30.5cpl then the difference between them and the top-paying co-ops becomes an absolutely enormous €1,000 for just August milk,” he added.
Noting that ICMSA accepted that across-the-board comparison might be too crude and ignore certain annualised factors, Mr Quain was still adamant that “any way you want to measure it”, there was still a massive gap between the milk price paid to farmers supplying different co-ops that simply could not be explained anyway.
“We’ve nothing against bonuses, but we have always said that bonuses – however they are described or labelled – should only be paid on top of the highest base milk price”, he concluded.