Milk sales across the dairy sector could plummet by a massive €1.32 billion this year compared to 2025, the Irish Creamery Milk Supplies Association (ICMSA) has forecast.
The farm body estimates that milk receipts this year will total €3.36 billion, back from €4.68 billion in 2025, as lower prices and reduced output combine to hammer dairy incomes.
The €1.32 billion reduction represents a staggering 28% drop in the total value of milk sales year on year.
The financial hit for the average dairy farmer milking 100 cows and supplying 550,000 litres will exceed €77,000, the ICMSA figures indicate.
The ICMSA analysis shows the amount wiped off dairy farmers’ incomes this year will exceed Ireland’s total payments for Basic Income Support for Sustainability(BISS), Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), the Eco Scheme and Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC), unless action is urgently taken to address market confidence.
And the full economic cost could top €3 billion if a multiplier of 2.3 is applied to the farmgate losses to take account of the consequent reduction in spending in the local economy, the farm body argued.
The ICMSA figures are based on farmers receiving an average milk price of 39.03c/l in 2026. This is back almost 14c/l on the 52.96/l (an actual price which includes VAT and payments for milk solids) paid on average in 2025.
ICMSA president Denis Drennan. \ Don Moloney
The farm body has also predicted a sharp drop in milk output due to the lower prices, with the ICMSA estimating that total volumes will fall by 200m litres in 2026 to 8.6 billion litres.
The ICMSA figures put total farmgate milk receipts at €2.87 billion in 2020, €3.55 billion in 2021, €5.28 billion in 2022, €3.66 billion in 2023 and €4.35 billion in 2024.
Reacting to the findings of the review, ICMSA president Denis Drennan maintained that the level of income volatility which these figures illustrated meant that farmers found it “impossible” to “budget or plan”.
“The average revenues come in at €4 billion per annum over the six years [2020 to 2025] but the deviation from the mean is at €800m. This is an uncontrollable level of volatility in a sector that is showing such stability in production,” Drennan said.
Reduction scheme
The ICMSA has repeated its call for the introduction of a voluntary supply reduction scheme across the EU to help put a floor on milk prices.
“Rural Ireland runs on milk. It’s the fuel; it’s the basis for prosperity,” Drennan claimed.
A €1.3 billion reduction in milk sales will impact agricultural contractors, feed merchants and all the other service providers, as well as dairy farmers, the ICMSA leader pointed out.
An EU-wide voluntary milk reduction scheme helped restore market confidence during the price collapse of 2016 and should be introduced once more, Drennan said.
Pointing out that “time is of the essence”, Drennan said farmers needed a floor put under the market and recovery to begin before peak production.
“It has to happen – and it has to happen now, or we’ll just see hundreds of millions of euro disappear from dairy farmer incomes and from the wider rural economy,” he warned.
Milk price collapse is set to cost Cork farmers around €318m
Cork’s dairy farmers could be out of pocket to the tune of a whopping €318m in 2026, due to the ongoing milk price collapse, the ICMSA figures show.
Other counties with the potential for sizeable income losses include the traditional dairy area in Munster, the southeast, and border counties.
ICMSA president Denis Drennan said these counties were facing an “income wipeout” which had serious implications for the wider rural economy in traditional dairy areas.
The ICMSA analysis forecasts that losses in Tipperary could total €154m, in Limerick the figure is €99m, €85m in Kilkenny, €83m in Kerry, €74m in Waterford and €70m in Wexford.
Other counties facing sizeable potential losses include Meath (€54m), Laois (€46m), Cavan (€37m), Galway (€36m), Offaly (€34m), Monaghan (€33.6m) and Clare (€28m).
“The kind of income wipeout that we’re seeing on the basis of these price falls – where the price farmers are receiving is now below the costs of production – becomes disastrous in a county like Cork that produces near 25% of all the milk in the State,” said ICMSA president, Denis Drennan.
“That means that when we adjust for the farm income multiplier effect, Cork alone is down €750 million in economic value as a result of this milk price collapse,” he maintained.
The income losses per county estimated by the ICMSA are calculated using Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) figures on the number of dairy cows in each county in 2024.
The calculation is premised on the average price paid for milk in 2026 dropping to 39c/l, or 14c/l below the 2025 average price.
Milk sales across the dairy sector could plummet by a massive €1.32 billion this year compared to 2025, the Irish Creamery Milk Supplies Association (ICMSA) has forecast.
The farm body estimates that milk receipts this year will total €3.36 billion, back from €4.68 billion in 2025, as lower prices and reduced output combine to hammer dairy incomes.
The €1.32 billion reduction represents a staggering 28% drop in the total value of milk sales year on year.
The financial hit for the average dairy farmer milking 100 cows and supplying 550,000 litres will exceed €77,000, the ICMSA figures indicate.
The ICMSA analysis shows the amount wiped off dairy farmers’ incomes this year will exceed Ireland’s total payments for Basic Income Support for Sustainability(BISS), Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), the Eco Scheme and Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC), unless action is urgently taken to address market confidence.
And the full economic cost could top €3 billion if a multiplier of 2.3 is applied to the farmgate losses to take account of the consequent reduction in spending in the local economy, the farm body argued.
The ICMSA figures are based on farmers receiving an average milk price of 39.03c/l in 2026. This is back almost 14c/l on the 52.96/l (an actual price which includes VAT and payments for milk solids) paid on average in 2025.
ICMSA president Denis Drennan. \ Don Moloney
The farm body has also predicted a sharp drop in milk output due to the lower prices, with the ICMSA estimating that total volumes will fall by 200m litres in 2026 to 8.6 billion litres.
The ICMSA figures put total farmgate milk receipts at €2.87 billion in 2020, €3.55 billion in 2021, €5.28 billion in 2022, €3.66 billion in 2023 and €4.35 billion in 2024.
Reacting to the findings of the review, ICMSA president Denis Drennan maintained that the level of income volatility which these figures illustrated meant that farmers found it “impossible” to “budget or plan”.
“The average revenues come in at €4 billion per annum over the six years [2020 to 2025] but the deviation from the mean is at €800m. This is an uncontrollable level of volatility in a sector that is showing such stability in production,” Drennan said.
Reduction scheme
The ICMSA has repeated its call for the introduction of a voluntary supply reduction scheme across the EU to help put a floor on milk prices.
“Rural Ireland runs on milk. It’s the fuel; it’s the basis for prosperity,” Drennan claimed.
A €1.3 billion reduction in milk sales will impact agricultural contractors, feed merchants and all the other service providers, as well as dairy farmers, the ICMSA leader pointed out.
An EU-wide voluntary milk reduction scheme helped restore market confidence during the price collapse of 2016 and should be introduced once more, Drennan said.
Pointing out that “time is of the essence”, Drennan said farmers needed a floor put under the market and recovery to begin before peak production.
“It has to happen – and it has to happen now, or we’ll just see hundreds of millions of euro disappear from dairy farmer incomes and from the wider rural economy,” he warned.
Milk price collapse is set to cost Cork farmers around €318m
Cork’s dairy farmers could be out of pocket to the tune of a whopping €318m in 2026, due to the ongoing milk price collapse, the ICMSA figures show.
Other counties with the potential for sizeable income losses include the traditional dairy area in Munster, the southeast, and border counties.
ICMSA president Denis Drennan said these counties were facing an “income wipeout” which had serious implications for the wider rural economy in traditional dairy areas.
The ICMSA analysis forecasts that losses in Tipperary could total €154m, in Limerick the figure is €99m, €85m in Kilkenny, €83m in Kerry, €74m in Waterford and €70m in Wexford.
Other counties facing sizeable potential losses include Meath (€54m), Laois (€46m), Cavan (€37m), Galway (€36m), Offaly (€34m), Monaghan (€33.6m) and Clare (€28m).
“The kind of income wipeout that we’re seeing on the basis of these price falls – where the price farmers are receiving is now below the costs of production – becomes disastrous in a county like Cork that produces near 25% of all the milk in the State,” said ICMSA president, Denis Drennan.
“That means that when we adjust for the farm income multiplier effect, Cork alone is down €750 million in economic value as a result of this milk price collapse,” he maintained.
The income losses per county estimated by the ICMSA are calculated using Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) figures on the number of dairy cows in each county in 2024.
The calculation is premised on the average price paid for milk in 2026 dropping to 39c/l, or 14c/l below the 2025 average price.
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