There has been a drop-off in the number of countries using intervention, with only two countries offering skimmed milk powder (SMP) to the measure last week, figures from the Milk Market Observatory (MMO) show.

Between October 11 and 18, only France (233t) and Lithuania (184t) offered SMP to intervention.

That’s a total of 417t which was offered to intervention last week, a decrease of 534t from the 951t offered to the measure in the previous week.

For the week October 5 to 11, four countries, Denmark, France, Latvia and Lithuania offered 951t to the measure, down from the 1,342t offered in the previous week.

Ireland hasn’t offered dairy product to intervention since the first week of October (72t) and the total amount offered remains under 2,000t at 1,967t.

Of the nine countries that have offered SMP to intervention, some 23,371t has been offered.

Butter offered to private storage

Ireland hasn’t offered butter into private storage aid (PSA) in two weeks, with 565t offered to PSA in the week ending October 4.

So far Ireland has offered over 20,000t of butter to the measure with a total of 27,393t offered, the second highest offering behind the Netherlands (63,726t).

For the week ending October 18, there was a total of 626t of butter offered to PSA, the lowest amount of butter offered to the measure in months.

Only the UK (8t) and the Netherlands (618t) offered butter to PSA for the week ending October 18.

Some 10 countries have offered butter to the measure this year, with a total of 154,121t of butter being offered.