Milk auction breaks the 30 pence barrier
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WITH milk supplies reduced by poor weather and forage, there was strong demand for the limited volumes of milk available at this month’s United Dairy Farmers’ milk auction, resulting in a further strong increase in the average price to 32.46 pence per litre.
“This is the highest auction price for five years and the improved price will be welcomed by dairy farmers who have endured a difficult summer and are now facing record winter feed costs,” United Group chief executive David Dobbin told Farming Life.
“The auction was driven by strong competition amongst buyers for the reduced volumes of milk available and the average price of 32.46 pence per litre was up 3.5p on last month’s auction and almost 3p ahead of the equivalent auction last year,” said Mr Dobbin.
“The milk sold will be delivered to processors in November and, with this auction result, United’s farmer price for November milk will be among the very highest in both the UK and the EU.
“We sold 33 million litres of milk in the auction, which was down four million litres on last year, reflecting the slowdown in local milk production, which has been mirrored elsewhere in the British Isles. UK production was 6% behind last year in mid October and Republic of Ireland supplies were 5% down in September adding to the overall shortage of milk. With less milk available processors have had to compete hard for the available milk, paying above current market returns to meet their contacted customer commitments.
“As a result of the acute shortage of milk at present, this month’s
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Weather for Belfast
Friday 24 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 4 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 8 C to 16 C
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