More cows, better weather and a good milk price combined to drive July milk intake at Irish dairy processors 5.8% higher than same month last year.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), a total of 690.3m litres was collected by Irish milk processors in July, 5.8% above the same month last year and 13% higher than the July 2012 level.

For the calendar year to date, the CSO report a milk intake of 3,717m litres, 7% higher than the same period last year.

While the strong milk supply is good news for farmers and processors, it will almost certainly create milk quota difficulties next Spring. The final milk quota year runs from 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015 - Irish farmers appear set for a significant superlevy bill next year for exceeding the national milk quota.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has announced that based on estimated milk deliveries for the period up to 31st July 2014, Ireland is 6.79% over quota when account is taken of the butterfat content of milk deliveries during the same period. Over quota milk supply incurs a fine of 28.7 cent per litre.