This gives a confident message to farmers who are heading into the peak production weeks. Storms in New Zealand have hit supply, caused Fonterra to close a plant and given a 3.1% boost to the GDT auction this week.

He said that markets had been weaker than expected for a couple of months now, driven by increased supplies in Europe and New Zealand. He noted that at the back end of last year, it was the reduced flows which had a positive effect on prices. Adding that this trend continued into 2017.

However, he warned that market pricing for the second half of this year is still a huge challenge due to the current weakness and the overhang of intervention stocks.

His comments come as Carbery announced a 6% rise in profits to €27m. While milk supply growth was not as expected, trending 4.4% higher in 2016, over 2015, the Carbery CEO said that milk supply growth is making up for lost ground and is currently up 16% over the same week last year.

He warned over the challenge that a hard Brexit poses for the dairy industry and especially highlighted cheese, given that Carbery produces some 25% of Irish cheese, with around 60% of that destined for the UK market. More details here.