Organic farmers milk price?

Pacoa

Anybody know what organic farmers are being payed for their milk at the moment? Im thinking I might have to convert as the price im getting for ordinary milk is dire! Is Glenisk the only purchaser in Ireland and would they purchase from anywhere in Ireland?

djmc

I think it was about 10 c more after 2 years but its too late anyway
http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/press/pressreleases/2009/july/title,33766,en.html

Pacoa

By "too late" do you mean it's too late to solve the current crisis? It takes too long?

djmc

The existing Organic Farming Scheme is suspended for new applications from today, pending the outcome of the review
I think the review will say there are no funds available

G-Man

Theres an organic dairy farmer near me, he says Glenisk cut the price from 38c to 30c ... (I dont know how recent, i may have the figures wrong.).

He then decided to work in partnership, with a small startup dairy who bottle it. The bottler said processing costs would make it very difficult to pay 40c back to farm side (which farm side needed)... i.e as its a partnership, the bottler was making no profit at that (milk is sold retail for 1.25 a litre.)

I notice Superquinn have own brand organic at 1.25/L alongside glenisk at 1.60/L.... Milk is stamped IE. Lidl have organic milk also at 1.25 L. its stamped UK/NI. So with this competition, expect to see even more price pressure on organic milk. This was always going to happen, as organics become more mainstream and there are more suppliers, the price pressures would force farmers back to the same level of profits.

Is cheese supplier the way to go... Cheese retails at 22/Kg.. But, 1 K of cheese needs approx 8/10 Kg of Milk... + the processing costs, but cheese surely there is a better chance of developing brand loyalty.

Good luck, I am not dairying myself, but understand Your pressures.

Pacoa

Thanks for that g-man, its preety much what i thought the price would be. They couldn't go much lower than that cause then there'd be no point in being organic. Paying something like 500 euro per ton of ration would push up your costs and then no antibiotics for mastitis, i think alot of farmers would just go back to conventional dairy farming if the price gap closed too much.