Farmers who plan to sign up to Glanbia’s new fixed milk price and feed scheme – which offers a €30 per tonne discount on feed purchased – will now be allowed to opt out of feed purchases after two years without penalties.

This is in response to feedback Glanbia has received through the farmer representative structure.

Opt out

In the event that a participant is not happy with the feed element of the loyalty scheme, they will be allowed to opt out of the feed part after two years without penalty.

The loyalty scheme pays a fixed milk price of 29.4c/l for five years, plus an optional feed element which offers a loyalty reward of €30/t on all dairy feed consumed by the participant’s herd.

Originally a farmer who opted for the feed element had to commit all feed for the dairy herd for five years.

Feed availability

There are also some concerns among farmers regarding the volume of feed available.

A “total aggregate volume of feed available” is limited to “25,000t each year”.

Based on the average cow eating one tonne of meal, and with an average herd size of 92 cows in the Glanbia region, this would limit the size of the feed loyalty component available to 270 farmers out of almost 4,000 Glanbia suppliers.

The deadline for applications for the scheme is Wednesday 18 October.

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Editorial: Glanbia's fixed milk price scheme