Extra cash at Dale Farm

The additional 4p/l payment for expanded production at Dale Farm has yielded 0.275p/l in November if spread over all litres purchased.

The figure is up from 0.23p/l earned for expansion in October. Expansion is measured for each producer above 95.7% of their production in the same month last year. In November, almost half of Dale Farm members earned additional money. Further expansion is on the cards for December.

Poor uptake for second BDG tranche

At the start of November, Agriculture Minister Michelle McIlveen announced that a second tranche of applications would be accepted onto CAFRE business development groups. The aim was to attract a further 250 dairy farmers and 30 pig producers.

But at the end of the application period on 30 November, it is understood that just 118 new applications have been received across both sectors.

Aurivo correction

Aurivo Co-op made changes to its payment structure from 1 October 2016. This included the introduction of a quality bonus of 0.35p/l payable when the TBC is 10,000/ml or less and the SCC is 150,000/ml or less in the same month. The bonus is in addition to the normal bonuses for low TBC and SCC.

In the 350,000-litre and one million-litre leagues for good quality milk published last week, the quality bonus of 0.35p was omitted in error.

However, including the quality bonus gives a milk price for the 350,000-litre producer of 27.20p/l and rank two (and not 26.85p and rank four as published). For the one million-litre producer, the inclusion of the quality bonus gives a milk price of 27.43p/l (and not 27.08p/l as published). The rank is unchanged at rank four. In the 12-month leagues, the quality bonus adds 0.03p to the published figures for good quality milk.