The January monthly milk league reflects the milk prices paid for January supply paid to farmers in the last two weeks. Apart from a small tweak or two, the price is more or less the same as December. Aurivo made the biggest move since December when it lifted milk price by 0.065c/kg milk solids (0.5c/l). This brings it closer to Tipperary Co-op at the lower end of the league.

The west Cork co-ops continue to dominate the first division and you could throw a blanket over the main players in division two with very little to separate them. The Kerry farmers will be happy to see Kerry leading the pack ahead of Dairygold and Glanbia.

The average price paid for January was €4.30/kg MS (30.6c/l at 3.3% protein/3.6% fat). Given it’s the first month of a new year, I took a look back at what the price was in January 2018. Like for like, the average payout was a good bit higher at €4.83c/kg MS (34.4c/l). That’s a 0.53c/kg difference in milk solids or almost 3c/l, which is quite significant.

Positive comments

So while January and indeed February supply is small, it reinforces the need to at least maintain current prices and for that farmers will be thankful of the positive or at least stable comments on price predictions from management in some of the main processors.

Lakeland is paying the same price as Glanbia. I’m sure it is 1 March when the Lakeland 5c/l penalty comes into play if a farm hasn’t been Quality Assured, so let this be a reminder.

While January supply for most farmers is much smaller in volume, the difference between top and bottom in milk price at the same solids means there is €315 less in the milk cheque.

At co-op solids, the difference is over €422 per farm for typical January supply.

The average price for the main table is €4.30/kg MS, which is equivalent to about 30.6c/l at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat ex-VAT.

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Milk league: West Cork cuts but still leads