With milk markets coming under pressure in recent weeks due to downward GDT prices and increasing EU milk production, processors have moved to consolidate their price for February.

Dale Farm is unchanged on a base of 25.5p/l. With its 0.3p/l loyalty bonus bringing it to 25.8p/l, it has set the pace on milk price for February.

Lakeland was the first to declare its hand on Monday of this week, holding its February base price at 25p/l.

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Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown announced that there would be no change to its base of 24.9p/l on Monday afternoon.

When adding in their producer bonus, they remain on 25.5p/l, which has been the case since December.

Glanbia Cheese announced on Tuesday that it was holding its February price at 25.25p/l.

Strathroy Dairy also remain unchanged on 24p/l, with its 1p/l winter bonus on February milk still in place. This brings their “all-in” base price to 25p/l, which has been the case since November.

Aurivo is set to declare its price later this week, but with a January base price of 25p/l and no movement on price from the other processors, expectations are that it will hold its price also.

At the time of going to press, LacPatrick was yet to confirm prices for February.

The more fragile state of dairy markets is reflected in the latest Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) milk price indicator (MPI) figure, which was down from 29.12p/l at the end of February to 27.88p/l.

Milk reduction scheme

Meanwhile, the UFU has highlighted the 20% underspend in the EU’s milk reduction scheme. The scheme, opened last autumn, offered farmers a financial incentive to reduce milk supply.

While production levels did fall, the target of 1.06m tonnes was not reached after some farmers did not follow through on their original intention to reduce milk volume. Payments will now be made to 44,000 farmers out of the 52,000 farmers who applied last September.

In Northern Ireland, there were 612 dairy farmers who applied to the scheme, but only 457 have made a claim for payment. This leaves 25% of the funding for NI unclaimed.

William Ervine, chair of the UFU dairy committee, said that the underspend in the scheme comes as no surprise as production levels were already falling last autumn and milk prices were rising. He added that the UFU raised this point at the outset of the scheme last autumn.

Ervine also called on the European Commission to ensure that the unspent funds are still used to support the dairy sector through a recovery that remains fragile.