While the price being paid for March milk remains the same as February, the cuts announced within these price decisions are a massive concern for farmers, according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA).

Ger Quain, chairman of the ICMSA’s Dairy Committee, said that the bills building up on farms are hugely concerning – and co-op boards cannot ignore these problems in the coming months when setting their respective milk prices.

“Farmers are very disappointed that co-ops had not ‘held the line’ on price, given weather-related problems on farms and the likely fall in production occurring in major milk producing countries due to those weather conditions feeding into the system,” Quain said.

Yet again, we are seeing the pain being passed back in full to farmers and the unsustainable nature of this kind of milk price volatility.

“The milk payments for the next three months are critical to a farmer’s total annual finances and co-ops are going to have to start taking some of this pain themselves,” said Quain.

Bonuses

“We’re also hearing a lot of criticism of this relatively new policy where co-ops cut base milk price only to then top-up payments to farmer-suppliers by means of bonuses or ‘special’ payments,” the chairman continued.

“Obviously no-one’s going to refuse the payment in the present climate where literally every cent counts – but farmers are not happy to see this movement to ‘special’ or bonus payments made at the discretion of the co-op, while the milk base price is cut month-on-month.

“The reality is that these so-called ‘bonuses’ or ‘support payments’ are based on profits generated by the co-op on the milk supplied or inputs purchased by their farmers and they should be part of the milk price and not be presented as a ‘special’ payment,” Quain concluded.