Kerry Group has opened its latest forward price scheme – the fifth incarnation of the initiative – to its suppliers for application from today, Wednesday, April 24.

In a statement to AgriLand, a spokesperson for the group confirmed that the fifth Kerry Agribusiness Forward Price Scheme will be available to milk suppliers for online application this afternoon at 2:00pm and will close at 2:00pm tomorrow, Thursday, April 25.

The offer price is confirmed at 30.6c/L including VAT for May through to October 2019 at solids of 3.30% protein and 3.60 butterfat.

The maximum volume that can be applied for is 20% of a supplier’s annual contracted milk volume.

MilkFlex 2

Meanwhile, earlier today, it was confirmed that the latest chapter in MilkFlex – MilkFlex 2 – has received over 900 applications so far and is a follow on from MilkFlex 1 which ended in April 2018.

MilkFlex was established in 2016 to provide dairy farmers in the Republic of Ireland with an innovative loan arrangement which insulates the borrowings from price volatility, seasonality and disease in the herd.

With MilkFlex 2 now up and running it has been confirmed to AgriLand that over 2,000 applications have been received under the scheme since its inception three years ago.

Over €100 million has been lent to dairy farmers during that time and there is currently a large volume of applications being processed. The necessary finance is being provided by the Irish Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), Rabobank and Finance Ireland.