Milk prices received by farmers in Northern Ireland during the month of February have increased by 40% in the space of a year.

The latest figures from DAERA (Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs) show that milk prices in February were 7.45p/L (8.7c) higher than those seen 12 months previously.

During the month of February, the Northern Ireland average farm-gate price of milk (including retrospective bonuses) was 25.95p/L (30c/L).

This compares to a February 2016 milk price of just 18.5p/L (22c/L).

However, the average farm-gate milk price in Northern Ireland did drop by 0.1p/L (0.1c/L) from January to February this year.

Source: DAERA

In January of this year, the price of milk decreased compared with the previous month – following six consecutive months of increases.

Despite the milk price increase, the volume of milk produced on farms in Northern Ireland equalled 179.66m litres during February 2017.

This represented a decrease of 1.3% compared to the corresponding month last year.

The volume of milk production in Northern Ireland also decreased from the levels seen in January of this year, when 190.40m litres of milk were produced.

This represented the first month-on-month production decrease since September 2016.

Source: DAERA

Irish milk production continues to fall in 2017

Meanwhile, the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that milk production in the Republic of Ireland continued to fall in 2017 – during the month of February.

Production in the second month of 2017 dropped by 7.8% compared with the same month in 2016.

Domestic milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers was estimated at 264.8m litres for February 2017. This represented a decrease of 22.3m litres compared with the previous February (2016).

The level of milk production decreased from 434.7m litres in January of this year to 413.5m litres in February. This equated to a month-to-month drop of 4.9%.

When comparing February 2017 to the corresponding month in 2016, the total milk sold for human consumption decreased by 4.9% to 39.4m litres, according to the CSO.

Meanwhile, butter production also dropped by 11.5 % to 8,200t, it added.