Dale Farm bonus

Dale Farm’s expansion bonus of 4p/l was worth an extra 0.35p/l on all milk supplied during October and increased to 0.45p/l on all milk supplied during November and December 2017.

In 2016, the 4p/l expansion bonus was worth 0.23p, 0.27p and 0.33p/l, respectively, for October, November and December.

The expansion bonus was payable on every litre of milk above the level of production for each corresponding month in 2015.

The figures suggest that it has had the desired effect of getting existing members to produce more milk in the final quarter of the year, especially in 2017.

November milk prices above 33p/l

Milk prices in NI averaged 33.28p/l for November according to DAERA statistics, an increase of 6.7p/l on November 2016.

Average milk price from January to November now stands at 28.52p/l, compared with 19.92p/l for the same period in 2016.

Milk produced in November totalled 171m litres, an increase of more than 15m litres on November 2016. This puts 2017 production levels at 2.09bn litres from January to November, which is 3.7% ahead of the same period in 2016.

Britain

In Britain, milk prices averaged 31.64p/l for November, while across the EU, prices averaged 34.59p/l.

Cyprus paid the highest milk price across all 28 EU member states at 51.91p/l. Ireland had the third highest price at 38.28p/l (driven by high milk solids) while the UK was down in 17th.