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Dairy commodity markets continue to perform strongly, with this week’s GDT auction recording a 0.4% increase in the index price, which now stands at US $3,490/t.
It is the 11th successive price increase at the bi-monthly GDT. The current index price is now on par with that of July 2017, when base prices in NI averaged 27.5p/l.
At the latest auction, butter prices were unchanged, but cheddar slipped by 2.4%. Skim milk powder increased by 2.8%, although whole milk powder was down marginally by 0.5%. When converting to sterling and allowing for processing and transport deductions, the index price would amount to an approximate farmgate milk price of between 28p/l and 29p/l.
Statistics
Meanwhile, DEARA statistics show NI farmgate milk prices averaged 27.18p/l during March, which is down 1p/l on the same month last year, and also 2p/l behind the average milk price paid in Britain.
Production
NI milk production totalled 216.7m litres in March, up from 189m litres in February and an increase of over 6m litres from the 210.5m litres produced during March 2018. For the first quarter of 2019, NI production is up 3.2%.
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