The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association has called for a base milk price of 53c/L for May milk supplies.
Chairperson of its dairy committee, Noel Murphy, believes this is “fully justified”. Therefore, he has urged co-op boards to consider this as “the minimum” when they meet next week to set the May milk price.
Murphy said that the recent ‘blips’ in the last few GDT were “entirely” predictable, given the prospect of peak milk production in the northern hemisphere.
More significant, he said, was that the most recent Dutch dairy quotations show that the market has “not only steadied but is actually moving upwards again”.
The ICMSA dairy committee chairperson said that all the indicators are positive.
He is of the view that dairy farmers must get the benefits of the improved market returns to offset the “long list” of escalating input costs.
“We have to say that we were a little taken aback by the recent comments by Minister McConalogue.”
“He cited the record milk prices without ever referencing the rocketing input costs. They have effectively wiped out any benefits that would have accrued due to those milk prices.”
“To reference one without the other is effectively to give only half the story. The kind of input inflation we are seeing now is eating through even the high prices we are receiving. It means that milk suppliers absolutely have to get every half-cent that their co-ops can pass back.”
“This has never been about price; this is always about margin, and we can see immediately that the market is returning well in excess of 53c/L to milk processors. We are demanding that this becomes the base price for May milk,” Murphy concluded.
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