Milk price is edging towards €6/kg milk solids or 42.2 c/l base price excluding VAT.

The most recent price increases were confirmed by returns made to dairy farmers this week.

Every single processor lifted the base price for January by between 0.13c/kg MS and 0.28c/kg MS.

Milk price is good and continues to improve.

All the dairy market commodity price signals continue to point upwards.

Supply at farm level is just cranking up now.

The difference between farmgate milk price and what the market is returning (the Ornua PPI) remains the big talking point at farm level.

There was a 5.6c/l difference in December and this month (January league) there is a 4c/l difference between the equivalent of what Ornua can get from the market and the farmgate milk price.

The processors are on the record saying they have to make a margin and that processing costs have increased in the last year, much like on-farm input costs have increased substantially.

They suggest this is the reason there is a difference between the PPI and what they pay out. There is real need for a complete and transparent index to show moving input costs at processor and farm level to bring better transparency and explanation to milk suppliers.