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IFA national dairy chair Tom Phelan has called on co-op boards to hold milk prices at February levels.
Processors will be announcing March milk prices over the coming week and while Phelan acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic was proving challenging for international trade, he pointed out that this was a busy time for dairy farmers and every cent would go towards “mounting bills”.
Global markets
“Global dairy markets for 2020 were looking very positive prior to COVID-19 and the dairy industry would have contracted spring milk into that market prior to the pandemic hitting. This should allow co-ops to maximise the March milk payout for farmers,” he said.
“All members of society face unprecedented uncertainty and farmers are no exception. This is where we need the real ethos of the co-operative movement to work for farmers.”
Although processors have assured farmers of the their ability to process the current milk volumes, there have been incidents of milk dumping in the US, which has caused concern to some Irish farmers.
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