The ICMSA has said that it predicts the Irish milk price will hit 40c/l as Fonterra increased to its highest price ever paid.

ICMSA’s dairy committee chair Gerald Quain commented: “ICMSA confidently expects all co-ops to rise their farmer milk price in line with international markets and pay the corresponding price for milk supplied this month and milk price should now be in the region of 40 cents per litre.

Input costs

“This is not a case of extra profit for the farmers; this is a case of using the increased milk price to try and offset the increased input costs”, he insisted.

“We’d remind the co-ops, not that we need to because they’ll know this from their own stores operations, that dairy inputs are already eating through these milk prices,” he said.

Quain said that the international demand for dairy products was solid and set against declining supply figures was moving prices up significantly as evidenced in the latest Dutch quotes.

He cited Fonterra’s decision announced on Monday 25 October to settle on $8.40/kgMS as the price to be paid to its member-suppliers.

Joint-highest

He said that this is the joint-highest price that the NZ giant has ever paid to its member-suppliers and comes as US production slows down due to the increases in feed costs.

Quain said that Fonterra had weighed-up all the contingent factors and were still able to settle on a price range only achieved once before.

He did not see any grounds for assuming that Irish co-ops could not arrive at the same conclusion.