Following the re-opening of fixed-price intervention for SMP and the doubling of allowable quantities last week, Irish milk processors have offered 1,733t into the scheme.

Ireland is second only to France in terms of the volumes of SMP oversupply placed into intervention last week. Nearly 9,000t of Irish SMP has gone into the scheme so far this year, five times as much as during the whole of 2015.

During the lull before the doubling of the fixed-price SMP intervention ceiling earlier this month, a temporary tender process operated in which Ireland placed very little product – but other countries, led by Germany and Belgium, offered a significant 22,623t.

There was a lot of activity again across the EU as soon as the fixed-price scheme reopened last week, with nearly 13,000t offered in just four days.

This compares with average EU-wide quantities of just over 8,000t per week during the first three months of this year and illustrates the continuing oversupply of milk powder on global markets, despite signs of recovery in Chinese demand.

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Large amounts of Irish milk powder being offered into intervention

According to the latest figures released by the European Commission, Ireland has offered nearly as much skimmed milk powder (SMP) into intervention in the past week as in the whole of last year.