Dairy farmers took a succession of blows this week as processors cut May milk prices. Most processors have cut their prices by 2c/l, taking €15m out of May milk cheques for farmers.

On Wednesday, Arrabawn, Dairygold and Tipperary Co-op all announced details of a 2c/l cut for May milk. Previously Lakeland, Carbery in west Cork, and Kerry all detailed price drops.

Glanbia and Aurivo also announced cuts to the base milk price for May but both co-ops will top up milk price from stability funds, by 3c/l in Glanbia’s case. (See pages 5, 20, 21).

Average milk price for all co-ops for April is just over €4/kg milk solids (28.8c/l).

Dairy farmers and processors will take some solace from Wednesday afternoon’s announcement by the Department of Agriculture of the instalment scheme for superlevy payments. This scheme allows Ireland to spread the superlevy bill over three years, with the first 33% to be paid by September 2015.

Lots of sunshine, good silage-making conditions and no quota restrictions to supply are positives, but it was still a miserable week due to the May milk price cuts. Output remains high, and solids are good, but milk price is now hovering below production costs.

There were some silver linings from the Global Dairy Trade auction this week. While the average product price fell by 1.3% to $2,409 per tonne, the price of some dairy commodities rose. This is the seventh consecutive drop in the New Zealand auction and leaves dairy commodity prices at their lowest since August 2009. The good news from the auction was whole milk powder, cheddar and butter prices held firm or improved.