The Ornua purchase price index (PPI) for June 2019 has fallen to 105.7. This is a farmgate equivalent price of 31.6c/l including VAT, based on Ornua’s product purchase mix and assumed costs of 6.5c/l.

This is down from a PPI of 107.3 the previous month.

A spokesperson for Ornua said that the "adjustment for June reflects lower butter prices offsetting higher powder prices and flat returns for cheese".

IFA National Dairy Chairman Tom Phelan said the reduction still leaves room for the majority of co-ops to increase their June milk price by 1c/l.

“Apart from the West Cork Co-ops, all milk purchasing co-ops have undershot the Ornua PPI in the milk price they have returned to farmers for most of the last seven months,” Phelan said.

“Global milk supplies are not growing at the moment, and are falling dramatically in some of the main regions, such as New Zealand, the US, Australia and Argentina. Also, intervention stocks of SMP are now totally empty."

Milk processors are meeting from Wednesday of this week to decide prices for June.