In advance of the announcements on September milk price, Gerald Quain, the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association’s (ICMSA’s) dairy committee chairperson has said “co-op boards need to recognise the anger amongst milk suppliers following recent milk-price reductions”.

“The market situation has improved noticeably since the start of September and put very plainly, ICMSA believes that no co-op should be paying less than 30c/L for milk supplied last month.

The differential in milk price between the lowest and highest paying co-ops is now very stark and simply cannot be justified by those co-ops at the bottom.

“ICMSA and farmers are not naive about the pressures that came on milk price over the summer months, but markets have subsequently improved and ICMSA is clear that some processors have gone too far in milk price reductions.

Certain boards need to clearly explain why they are paying a price so far behind others and behind the Ornua index.

“Markets have moved forward with three positive Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auctions in a row while Dutch dairy quotes for the butter/Skim Milk Powder (SMP) mix are now 31.7c/L at farm gate – the highest position since May and a full 2.7c/L higher than its the low point in August.

“Whole Milk Powder (WMP) has shown a similar trend returning 33.7c/L at farm gate this week almost 3c/L above its low point in July.

Concluding, Quain stressed: “Markets have improved and farmers are entitled to expect that their milk price will reflect those market improvements.”