Tipperary farming: ICMSA convinced there is a two-tier milk price system

Following the latest announcements of July milk prices, ICMSA’s dairy committee chairperson, Ger Quain, has stated that he believes that there is now a two-tier milk price system at play in the Irish market.

The prices announced for the month of July had made this very obvious as there was now a discrepancy of over 3cpl between the top and bottom prices being paid to farmers from around the country, he said.

On the question of whether all bonuses should be included on a whole-year basis instead of simply looking at a month in isolation, Mr Quain said the divergence actually widened when bonuses were factored-in.

“If we take that line and examine the 2018 milk price figures as published by KPMG, the difference between top and bottom stands at 4cpl and amounts to a truly astonishing €16,000 over the course of 2018 for a supply of 400,000 litres. If we look at 2019, this discrepancy is already at over €8,000 for the first seven months of the year for the same supply curve.,” said Mr Quain.

He said that farmers were asking how this was possible.

Farmer suppliers are well aware of the uncertainty around international dairy markets at the moment, but ICMSA still feels entitled to ask why there is such shocking differences on what is a homogenous market for homogenous products around the globe?” said Mr Quain.