Co-ops need to move on price

WESTERN dairy farmers need to get a milk price that reflects the Ornua Purchase Price Index, according to Galway IFA Dairy Representative Noel Murphy.

He told the Farming Tribune that the co-ops couldn’t continue to pay a base price for milk that lagged behind the Ornua price index by two cents per litre.

Ornua – the agri-food co-operative that markets and sells dairy products on behalf of its members – had an October price index that translated into a base price of 31.5c/l, roughly 2c/l more than the co-ops were paying to farmers.

“The situation cannot be allowed to continue whereby dairy farmers are not being paid a price for their milk that matches up with the Ornua figure.

“There are many dairy farmers who are servicing large loans and they just cannot survive on the current base price of roughly 29c/l.

“We are urging the co-ops to bear this in mind when they fix the price for November milk – farmers need to get an increase that equates to a fair price for the milk that they produce,” said Noel Murphy.

According to IFA National Dairy Chairman, Tom Phelan, the co-ops over recent months had failed to fairly reflect the improved market returns for milk. He said that the situation had now been reached whereby Irish milk prices had ‘lost touch’ with the European trends of recent months – cuts in the Irish milk price occurred in late Spring/early Summer when European milk prices were stable.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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