Figure 1 shows the sum of money that a typical 230,000 litre farmer supplier to each processor would have received for September milk.

The ranking is slightly different to the main table opposite for three main reasons – conditional bonuses, milk solids content and fat:protein payment ratios.

In figure 1, all conditional bonus payments are included, but they are excluded from the main league ranking. The four west Cork co-ops leap over Arrabawn on the basis of the 0.5 c/litre bonus paid in September for milk under 200,000 SCC. This is not included in the main league table, which is based on an SCC of 300,000.

Fair and accurate

The other main difference is milk solids. In order to compare prices on a fair and accurate basis, the Irish Farmers Journal milk league uses the average solids for Irish milk supplied in 2013 – 3.39% protein and 3.94% butterfat.

Average solids

However, Figure 1 is based on the average solids of the milk received by the co-op in September.

Milk collected by Dairygold in September had 8% combined fat and protein – 3.73% protein and 4.28% fat. In contrast, milk in Town of Monaghan was much lower at 7.37% solids – 3.47% protein and 3.90% fat. Mainly due to the huge gap in milk constituents, there was a €1,000 difference between Lisavaird and Monaghan in September payout.