Aurivo Co-op pays an unconditional bonus on all March milk supply and this keeps it ahead of the chasing pack from west Cork when the March milk cheques landed last week.

Drinagh Co-op leads the four West Cork co-ops. Nestled in between the west Cork co-ops is Dairygold, which also pays a March bonus on all milk that is unconditional.

At the other end of the March league table Tipperary Co-op props up the bottom of the table paying €6.14 c/kg milk solids, with near neighbour Arrabawn Co-op paying €6.18 c/kg milk solids.

The shift in March milk prices has been quite significant. I’m not sure have we ever seen an increase like this at this time of the year as the processors look to keep up with commodity dairy markets that have soared for the last number of months.

The average base milk price has gone up over 3c/l in old money from 41.3c/l in February to 44.6c/l in March. Remember this is base price so VAT is on top of this and milk solids are on top of it also. Conditional bonuses are not included in the base price. For example, the west Cork co-ops and North Cork have an SCC bonus for milk under 200,000 cells/ml.

The Kerry 2021 top-up of 0.85c/l paid out on milk solids is also not included in the Kerry price.