Lithuania will put 606 tonnes of skimmed milk powder (SMP) into this Wednesday's round of notifications to the European Commission and around 520 tonnes are scheduled to be offered in the coming weeks, a government official told the Irish Farmers Journal.

"In total we have 1,134 tonnes of SMP in the pipeline," said Germanas Lamsodis, director of support programmes at the Lithuanian Agricultural and Food Market Regulation Agency.

"Only one dairy is using intervention at the moment," Lamsodis said, adding that the unnammed processor was "more export-oriented" and affected by falling global prices for dairy commodities.

This is the first time an EU member state is using intervention since the scheme opened last September in the wake of the Russian ban on European dairy products.

The farmgate base milk price in Lithuania is currently around 20c/l and the intervention price is 21c/l.

A European Commission source expressed surprise that volumes were not offered for intervention earlier this year.

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The Lithuanian government will apply for dairy intervention from the European Union this Wednesday, with more than 1,000 tonnes of milk powder expected to be taken off the market in the coming weeks.