While he would not revise price forecasts just yet, Glanbia’s Sean Molloy would “see more light at the end of the tunnel on markets” now than he did last November.

Speaking in Kilkenny at one of four Irish Farmers Journal dairy meetings, he said that Glanbia had presented a guide milk price of 27 cent per litre at its supplier meetings in November.

“However, since that time, exchange rates have moved in our favour, the GDT auction appears to have bottomed out and there are positive signs on demand,” he said.

In reply to a question from the floor, he said that low oil prices are “a double-edged sword” for dairy farmers.

“It will reduce processing and transport costs, but will affect demand for dairy products from oil-producing countries. He said that Glanbia has not bought oil or gas forward, so will be able to pass on reduced processing costs to farmers.

Meanwhile, a €20m fund set up by Glanbia co-op will be worth about 0.75 cent per litre on a full-year basis, but could be more significant on a per-litre basis in the low-volume early months of the year.

At the Castlebar meeting, Eoghan Sweeney from Aurivo said that the co-op has created a €2m fund to help deal with low points in the milk price cycle.

The series of meetings focused on managing finances in a difficult year.

Peter Young from the Irish Farmers Journal encouraged farmers to prepare a simple cashflow budget for the year ahead. He said that merchant credit is expensive and is one of the first sources of finance that farmers turn to.

IFAC’s Martin Clarke told the Castlebar meeting that dairy farmers need to prepare for potentially large superlevy and tax bills in 2015.

The importance of maintaining mental health was stressed at the meetings - see pages 28-29.

A full webcast of the Kilkenny meeting can be viewed on www.farmersjournal.ie.

EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan announced the extension of Private Storage Aid (PSA) for butter and Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) until the end of September 2015. Just over 26,700 tonnes of butter and 17,900 tonnes of Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) have been taken off the market and put into private storage since September 2014, according to DG AGRI. Some 8,014 tonnes of Irish butter is in storage.

Latest figures show that US milk production in December was up 3.2% from December 2013. The pace of milk output growth will have a major impact on global milk price this year.