With no special bonuses applied for March milk, the top five in the Northern Ireland milk price league are all over 23p/litre after deduction of transport charges. Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown Co-op (whose milk is bought by Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Limited on terms equal to Glanbia Milk) are joint top of the league at almost 24p/l. In third position, the price paid by Glanbia Cheese at Magheralin was 0.5p below the top, narrowly ahead of Lakeland Dairies and Town of Monaghan.

All of these have moved above Aurivo Co-op, whose price was top of the February league due to its bonus of 2p/l for that month.

None of the buyers have made any change in their base price from February to March. The top six prices all coming from the southern-based buyers left the bottom four places occupied by the Northern Ireland co-ops.

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Fane Valley and Ballyrashane paid over 22p/l and the basic United Dairy Farmers price was marginally under 21p/l. United’s Dale Farm Red Tractor price, which applies to the majority of their milk, was 21.38p/l. It is little consolation that this was almost 2p/l above the price payable by First Milk in Britain for milk of the same quality – and that First Milk price is before deduction of their capital levy of 2p/l.

The prices in this league are after deduction of transport charges applicable to a supplier of 500,000 litres per year, with average NI seasonality of supply and with average milk quality of 4% butterfat, 3.2% protein, 4.74% lactose, TBC of 17 and SCC of 190. These compositional quality and hygienic quality standards reflect the actual averages attained in supplies to United in March.

It’s the lowest somatic cell count used in the monthly league to date and it means that bonuses by various buyers for low SCC are included in the prices.

Third place in the league is above normal for Glanbia Cheese, whose price was the top payable to the million litres-per-year supplier for milk of long-term average quality (Table 3) – just marginally above the prices from Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown. The prices paid by these three buyers were over 2p/l above the Dale Farm Red Tractor milk prices across the range of milk qualities and differing sizes of supplier compared for March.

The Magheralin-based company’s prices also rank strongly among prices payable to the smaller supplier (Table 2) – much more than they have traditionally done in these price comparisons. This follows the decision of Glanbia Cheese last November to suspend milk collection charges for 12 months. It means a lot to the producer of 350,000 litres per year, who would otherwise have relatively big deductions per litre. It may not mean so much to some of the larger suppliers to Glanbia Cheese, who were already on special deals for transport charges.

These special deals have been one of the features of the competition among milk buyers in NI during the 20 years since deregulation of milk marketing. That deregulation brought a radical change from the old statutory Milk Marketing Board system of transport charges applied at a set amount per litre, regardless of volume collected. It was a highly subsidised deal for the smaller producers and didn’t reflect normal market forces.

Now, Glanbia Cheese has effectively done the same with its suspension of transport charges, which provides a bigger subsidy per litre to the smaller suppliers. Other buyers who charge below cost for milk collection are also assisting the smaller producer to some extent.

Tables A and B indicate that the ‘‘rolling average’’ prices for ‘‘average quality’’ milk supplied over the milk year 2014-15 have been at least 27p/litre at each of the top four buyers in Northern Ireland, after deduction of collection charges.

For the larger supplier (one million litres per year, Table B) the fifth best price for average milk has also worked out above 27p/l over the past 12 months.

Town of Monaghan ranked fifth across the whole range of milk qualities and the two sizes of supplier in these comparisons. The top four placings were shared by Lakeland Dairies, Glanbia Milk, Aurivo and Fivemiletown Co-op (whose milk has been bought by Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Limited for 10 months of the past year).

Southern-based buyers have been strong competitors for milk in NI, often paying more for milk in the North than they pay for supplies south of the border.

Good quality

For ‘‘good quality’’ milk, the top six prices were all above 28p/litre, with Glanbia Milk only a hairsbreadth below 29p/l. Glanbia Cheese was ranked sixth across all of the categories compared.

Those prices from Glanbia Cheese include a 0.3p/l ‘‘back payment’’ on supplies in 2014, which lifted them to best of the Northern Ireland based milk buyers. Town of Monaghan is also principally a buyer in NI, with only around 20% of its milk sourced in the Republic and therefore not in a position to ‘‘subsidise’’ its NI milk purchases from any large milk pool south of the border.

At the lower end of these leagues, the prices paid by Fane Valley are generally in seventh place and more than 1p/l below the top prices. But they are above the Red Tractor prices of Ballyrashane Co-op and Dale Farm. United Dairy Farmers’ basic prices are around 2p/l below the top prices. It has been a difficult 2014-15 for United members, whose basic prices in 2013-14 were above those of Town of Monaghan across all categories compared, while with the Dale Farm Red Tractor bonus they were ranking between third and sixth best in these comparisons.

In these tables, the prices paid by the First Milk producer co-operative in Britain for comparable milk over the 12 months are before deduction of the ‘‘capital levy’’ that members of First Milk are required to pay. The levy increased from 0.5p/l to 2p/l, with effect from December 2014.