The July PPI announced today by Ornua, which dropped by 0.7 points, still leaves room for the majority of co-ops to hold their July milk price, at the very worst.
IFA National Dairy Chairman, Tom Phelan, who said that the new price is the equivalent to a milk price of 30.9c/l including VAT.
“Apart from the West Cork co-ops, all milk purchasing co-ops have undershot the Ornua PPI in the milk price they have returned to farmers for most of the last eight months,” Phelan said.
Ahead Of The Curve
Phelan explained that, despite Irish supplies increasing by 10%, global milk supplies for the first half of the year are down in Germany (-1.5% on May and -1.4% in June), France (-1.6% in May and – 0.2% in June).
He said that Dutch milk output, which is still moderated by herd reduction, is down 2.7% for the January to May period.
“Heatwaves in June and July are compounding these figures,” he added. “Demand remains relatively good in Asia, South America, the EU and the US.”
Phelan stressed that this was no time to sit around and see what happens, acknowledging a number of third-party influencers in the global scene.
“Concerns over the potential impact of economic and geopolitical factors that have yet to materialise is not a good enough reason to deny Irish farmers for several months a milk price fully justified by market returns,” he said.
“Co-ops will be meeting to set milk prices from next week and they should be able, at the very minimum, to hold prices at their current levels,” he concluded.
© 2019 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click sign-up to subscribe to Checkout.
