According to DairyCo, the January EU28 (excluding Malta) weighted average farmgate milk price stood at €40.03/100kg, down €0.21/100kg (0.5%) on the previous month.
The January EU27 weighted average milk price stood at €40.03/100kg, down €0.21/100kg (0.5%) on the previous month, a decrease of 0.53ppl. Compared with the previous year, the weighted average EU27 price for January was up €5.70/100kg (16.6%), an increase of 4.76ppl.
The average Irish farmgate price in January stood at €41.57, placing it ninth in the EU farmgate dairy price leaf . The equivalent figure for the UK was €39.70/100kg, which was the eleventh highest price of any nation in the EU15 after Finland, Greece, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium.
The EU15 weighted average price stood at €40.62/100kg (34.62ppl) in January, €0.17/100kg (down 0.4%) down on December and €5.73/100kg (16.4%) higher than the January 2013 average.
Looking at the top-five milk producing countries (Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and Poland), the average January price was €39.77/100kg which was a €0.30/100kg (0.7%) decrease compared with the previous month.
Comparisons between years showed that of the EU-28 member states (excluding Malta), 20 showed an increase in deliveries (in thousand tonnes) between December 2012 and December 2013, while 6 member states showed decreases.
The five largest milk producing members in December 2013 (Germany, France, UK, Netherlands and Poland) produced a combined figure of 7,686 thousand tonnes (7,464m litres) which was 354.2 thousand tonnes (4.8%) more than the previous year equivalent to 344 million litres.
Ireland showed the largest year on year increase in percentage terms with December 2013 deliveries at 169.1 thousand tonnes – an increase of 35.1 thousand tonnes (26.2%).
Significantly, UK milk production is also on the rise at the present time. Daily deliveries for the two weeks ending 15/03/2014 averaged 40.2m litres/day, 4.3m litres/day (12.0%) higher than the same period last year. Daily deliveries for this period were 3.1m (8.3%) higher compared with the 3-year average.
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