Carbery chief executive Jason Hawkins says he is “optimistic” for milk prices for the remainder of 2018. Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the Agricultural Science Association (ASA) 2018 annual conference on Friday, Hawkins said he thinks farmgate milk prices will remain steady at current levels until the end of the year.

“Looking at our markets today and the supply-demand dynamic right now, I’d be optimistic dairy markets will stay firm in terms of where they are today for the remainder of the year,” said Hawkins.

“I think we’ll see milk prices similar to what we have now through the end of the year rather than prices going backwards,” he added.

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However, the Carbery boss, who took up his position as chief executive of the west Cork dairy processor in January 2018, cautioned that dairy powder markets remain weak as the EU’s intervention stockpile of skimmed milk powder (SMP) continues to overhang dairy markets.

“Milk powder markets are still weak enough. Fresh powder is getting a better price in the market than the intervention stockpile that’s overhanging all of the market. So I think there’s been a slight improvement in powder prices but certainly by historical standards the markets for powders are very weak,” said Hawkins.

Drought

On milk supply, Hawkins said the group was seeing a strong rebound in milk collections from dairy farmer suppliers over recent weeks as grass growth recovers following the summer drought in Ireland.

“Through July, our milk supplies were pretty much flat, maybe up 0.5%, year on year. But over the last number of weeks we’ve actually seen quite a big increase in milk supply year on year. So we probably expect to see our milk supply up maybe 1% by the end of the year,” said Hawkins.