The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) is urging other co-operatives to ‘follow’ the move by Lakeland Dairies to pay 32c/L including VAT for milk supplied in September.

The Cavan-based co-operative revealed its milk price following a meeting of its board earlier today (Tuesday, October 13).

In Northern Ireland, a base price of 26.25p/L will be paid for September milk. Again, the base price has increased by 1p/L on the August price.

Milk market

Chairperson of the ICMSA Dairy Committee Ger Quain said the increase accorded with ICMSA’s view that markets had moved sufficiently forward to warrant all co-ops looking to increase their base prices by a similar margin.

Quain said: “Not for the first time, Lakeland was leading the way upwards on milk price and showing that it was possible to return competitive milk prices to its farmer-suppliers in line with the market data that all sector observers could see.”

Quain said that he hopes all other co-ops would now follow Lakeland’s decision and move their base price upwards in line with what were “indisputable market rises”.

In a brief statement to AgriLand on Wednesday, October 7, a spokesperson for Ornua said:

“The Ornua PPI for the month of September is 102.8 and is up from 101.8 in the previous month.”