The Glanbia price rise of 1c/L on its January milk price has been welcomed by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA).
The organisation’s dairy committee chairperson, Gerald Quain, said the Glanbia Ireland decision reflects “an underlying market strength”.
“We have already stated we believe that the market will deliver price-rises up to and through our peak period.”
On the question of the ‘Trading Bonus’ from Glanbia Co-op, Quain said: “The ICMSA would prefer to see farmer-suppliers rewarded through regular monthly payments that tracked the Ornua Price Purchase Index (PPI) and paid a milk price that reflected the market situation.
The association is dubious about bonuses that were calculated and paid based on trading.
“Farmers will purchase inputs from their processor if they are priced competitively and this is the crucial point that must be borne in mind by all co-ops supplying inputs to their farmers and not trading bonuses.”
Concluding, Quain said: “ICMSA’s position on discretionary payments has always been that we and our farmer members would prefer to get a milk price that we can see is directly linked to strengthening markets as opposed to a milk price that demonstrably lags the market and a payment of a bonus.”