Glanbia Price Increase Must Be First Step Towards Profitable Milk Prices

IFA National Dairy Committee Chairman Kevin Kiersey today (Tues) welcomed the Glanbia announcement of a 1c/l increase which will lift their August milk price to 28.09 c/l + VAT. He called on all co-ops to emulate the Glanbia move, in light of the ongoing strong market recovery.
“We in IFA have highlighted over the last two months the continuing significant improvements in European and international market returns, and the move by Glanbia reflects some of this.”

Kevin Kiersey said, “As international milk supply and demand rebalance much more rapidly than expected, commodity returns have increased massively since May. Global buyers now realise that droughts in the US and Russia are making grain and feed dearer and curtailing US milk supplies, while weather factors have also induced a fall in EU supplies. As a result, they are now willing to pay significantly more for dairy products, as evidenced by the 3.5% and 7.8% price increases in the August Fonterra auctions”.

“European market returns have improved even more, by up to 8c/l for EU spot butter/SMP quotes as of last week, and indeed EU dairy market prices are still rising,” he said.

“Glanbia and all other co-ops must now follow on this first step, and implement a programme of producer price improvements allowing dairy farmers all around the country to benefit from improved market returns and restore their profitability as soon as possible,” he concluded.