First Milk has today announced that its milk price for December 2018 will be held at 28.5p/L for the liquid standard litre (4% butterfat, 3.3% protein).
This equates to 29.47p/L on a manufacturing standard litre (4.2% butterfat and 3.4% protein) price.
Commenting on the announcement, Jim Baird, vice chairman and farmer director, said: “The dairy commodity markets have weakened significantly in recent weeks and this puts pressure on milk prices.
“Of course, we are not immune from this, but our underlying business performance remains in line with our plans, which has allowed us to hold prices for December, and we aim to provide as much milk price stability to our members as we can moving forward.ah
“Looking into 2019, we have a clear growth strategy and we are confident that together, we can deliver dairy prosperity.”
GB daily milk production
GB daily deliveries for the week ending November 3 were on par with last year, up by just 0.1%.
Average daily production for the week was 33.3 million litres – only 0.3% down on the previous week, and remaining in line with typical seasonal patterns.
Despite the dip in production observed during the exceptionally hot summer months, improved weather conditions during September and October, resulting in favourable grass growth, have aided recovery.
Cumulatively, milk production is now only 0.2% behind last year’s total for the year-to-date.
Despite this, with concerns around silage shortages across much of the country, there is likely to be increased concentrate usage going forwards.
Depending on the extent to which this impacts on farm margins, there could be a knock-on impact on milk production later in the production season.
