Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

Greengrass1 · 10-09-2015 10:50PM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLL-55P2Dxxtd310ETLKcfNy9cMxyUQBxd&params=OAFIAVgB&v=Wi4D6_DVFd0&mode=NORMAL

Worth a view

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 07:25AM

kevthegaff wrote: »

Talking to glanbia supplier, talk of 24c plus top up. He said 24 for remainder of year.

That's on the money, may or may not be this month but on the way.

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 07:34AM

WheatenBriar wrote: »

I was told today Glanbia's plant in Belview has temporarily stalled producion for a few months due to a stockpile of unsold product, is that the case?
Remind me again how shareholders and suppliers were 'persuaded' again that investing 10's of millions of our own money via the co op in that plant was a good idea and the leading milk price it would bring?

The people telling us that at the time will of course be getting bonuses, I suppose
Feel codded now?

Belview has not stalled production because of stock build up. One drier is shut down in order for the company who installed it to correct the problems it was having.

The other drier is running smaller batches of 7 million litres per month as the plant is in the accreditation stage with the company planning to buy infant formula.

Had the plant not been built the milk produced by us Farmers could not have been processed. There was absolutely no spare capacity on the island at peak this summer.

I attended all the meetings in my area and others and never heard one word of milk price drop from the floor. We're great at this "I told you so" but the fact is "you didn't"

kowtow · 11-09-2015 07:58AM

frazzledhome wrote:

I attended all the meetings in my area and others and never heard one word of milk price drop from the floor. We're great at this "I told you so" but the fact is "you didn't"

There was plenty of talk about volatility.. on here at least....

Although I remember talking to one large dairy farmer in late 2012/3 and suggesting that price would not be driven enough by China etc. ... he thought I was stark staring mad and obviously knew nothing about cows.

rangler1 · 11-09-2015 08:10AM

kowtow wrote: »

There was plenty of talk about volatility.. on here at least....

Although I remember talking to one large dairy farmer in late 2012/3 and suggesting that price would not be driven enough by China etc. ... he thought I was stark staring mad and obviously knew nothing about cows.

+1
Farmers got well warned, there's no point in starting the blame game now......there's none so deaf as those that don't want to hear

WheatenBriar · 11-09-2015 08:36AM

In all the recent years I've been farming,Ive resigned myself to expecting a a decent price in only 1 out of 3 years
The fundamental problem isnt ours because unlike other industries, we can't strike
Therefore we lack the ability to educate the rest of the world into gaining a respect for the effort going into the most important thing in their lives,their food
If the people who constantly conspire to keep food prices down (and who promote the failed subsidy to the producer method of alleviation for this) had to go out and work on farms or else have no food,they might think differently

Its fundamentally a political problem, decades old that's strangling farmers

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 08:47AM

WheatenBriar wrote: »

In all the recent years I've been farming,Ive resigned myself to expecting a a decent price in only 1 out of 3 years
The fundamental problem isnt ours because unlike other industries, we can't strike
Therefore we lack the ability to educate the rest of the world into gaining a respect for the effort going into the most important thing in their lives,their food
If the people who constantly conspire to keep food prices down (and who promote the failed subsidy to the producer method of alleviation for this) had to go out and work on farms or else have no food,they might think differently

Its fundamentally a political problem, decades old that's strangling farmers

+++++1000

Spot on, hit the nail

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 08:51AM

kowtow wrote: »

There was plenty of talk about volatility.. on here at least....

Although I remember talking to one large dairy farmer in late 2012/3 and suggesting that price would not be driven enough by China etc. ... he thought I was stark staring mad and obviously knew nothing about cows.

Exactly, volatility and that's where we are. I doesn't mean we shouldn't process our milk. Take a look at the other EU countries rise in production and you'll soon see we are only bit players. A lot of countries France, Germany etc spill more than our increase

mf240 · 11-09-2015 09:00AM

In fairness to glanbia there would have to be some teething problems with a project that size.

White Clover · 11-09-2015 09:14AM

WheatenBriar wrote: »

In all the recent years I've been farming,Ive resigned myself to expecting a a decent price in only 1 out of 3 years
The fundamental problem isnt ours because unlike other industries, we can't strike
Therefore we lack the ability to educate the rest of the world into gaining a respect for the effort going into the most important thing in their lives,their food
If the people who constantly conspire to keep food prices down (and who promote the failed subsidy to the producer method of alleviation for this) had to go out and work on farms or else have no food,they might think differently

Its fundamentally a political problem, decades old that's strangling farmers

Spot on. Look at the Russian situation at present. A political problem.....farmers paying.

mahoney_j · 11-09-2015 09:21AM

frazzledhome wrote: »

Belview has not stalled production because of stock build up. One drier is shut down in order for the company who installed it to correct the problems it was having.

The other drier is running smaller batches of 7 million litres per month as the plant is in the accreditation stage with the company planning to buy infant formula.

Had the plant not been built the milk produced by us Farmers could not have been processed. There was absolutely no spare capacity on the island at peak this summer.

I attended all the meetings in my area and others and never heard one word of milk price drop from the floor. We're great at this "I told you so" but the fact is "you didn't"

Just to correct u on one point ,there's a coop very near me that had some spare capacity even after processing our own milk .took in a lot of lakelands ,tipp coop ,Kerry I think and fairly sure some Glanbia milk (not 109% in that).also in the 24 cent don't think farmers should just lie down and accept it .last 2 gdt auctions up and Ornua ppi only slightly down .glanbia and every coop board men need to be lobbied very hard to hold price especially Glanbia and dsirygold at 25 cent .marketsxare starting to slowly turn

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 09:34AM

mahoney_j wrote: »

Just to correct u on one point ,there's a coop very near me that had some spare capacity even after processing our own milk .took in a lot of lakelands ,tipp coop ,Kerry I think and fairly sure some Glanbia milk (not 109% in that).also in the 24 cent don't think farmers should just lie down and accept it .last 2 gdt auctions up and Ornua ppi only slightly down .glanbia and every coop board men need to be lobbied very hard to hold price especially Glanbia and dsirygold at 25 cent .marketsxare starting to slowly turn

Totally agree on lobbying, a clear message needs to be sent by all farmers in all co ops.

On capacity, had Bellview not been opened where would all the milk have been processed. Glanbia are held up for the whipping here but all they're doing is processing the milk that their suppliers produce.

We were asked what our plans were on numerous occasions and we clearly said we'd produce more milk. Similarly with DG as their suppliers have said the same.

Selling the product is another game

mahoney_j · 11-09-2015 09:48AM

frazzledhome wrote: »

Totally agree on lobbying, a clear message needs to be sent by all farmers in all co ops.

On capacity, had Bellview not been opened where would all the milk have been processed. Glanbia are held up for the whipping here but all they're doing is processing the milk that their suppliers produce.

We were asked what our plans were on numerous occasions and we clearly said we'd produce more milk. Similarly with DG as their suppliers have said the same.

Selling the product is another game

On bellview ,am I correct in saying that plant would and will have a majority of product processed for baby formula for Chinese market and also that it will only run for a certain % of the year ??.if so was it not a major punt to take on a market that will become less and less dependant on imports and a history of buying strong and heave at times then give months buying frig all.

Agreed something had to be done to process milk but was too big a gamble taken on bellview??.dairygold are building processing capacity slow and steady and my own crowd in fairness to them have done same

pedigree 6 · 11-09-2015 10:09AM

frazzledhome wrote: »

I attended all the meetings in my area and others and never heard one word of milk price drop from the floor. We're great at this "I told you so" but the fact is "you didn't"

Ah come on now Frazz you were at all the meetings yourself. Why didn't you stand up and say something. You can't distance yourself and blame everyone else for not doing anything, you're starting to sound like rangler here. As for the problems in Belview the dog in the street knows the problems down there. But farmers shouldn't have to pay for Glanbia's mistakes. Farmers produce a quality assured product and don't want to see it turned into dogfood.

rangler1 · 11-09-2015 10:27AM

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Ah come on now Frazz you were at all the meetings yourself. Why didn't you stand up and say something. You can't distance yourself and blame everyone else for not doing anything, you're starting to sound like rangler here. As for the problems in Belview the dog in the street knows the problems down there. But farmers shouldn't have to pay for Glanbia's mistakes. Farmers produce a quality assured product and don't want to see it turned into dogfood.

What do you mean by that, That post come across as you criticising frazz for not saying anything and me for being too realistic.

I've flagged many times that you were cosseted in a protected market and you didn't know what the real world was like.....ok it turns out I was proved right, but it didn't take genius to figure.

pedigree 6 · 11-09-2015 10:34AM

rangler1 wrote: »

What do you mean by that, That post come across as you criticising frazz for not saying anything and me for being too realistic.
I've flagged many times that you were cosseted in a protected market and you didn't know what the real world was like.....ok it turns out I was proved right, but it didn't take genius to figure.

Hey no offence meant. But you tend to blame everyone else for saying nothing about problems in farming. Whatever happened to we're all in this together.

rangler1 · 11-09-2015 10:44AM

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Hey no offence meant. But you tend to blame everyone else for saying nothing about problems in farming. Whatever happened to we're all in this together.

Blame game is a waste of energy, what would everyone be saying about glanbia if they didn't have enough capacity.
Jumping up and down at meetings is a waste of energy too, if you have 12 people in a room they'll do a lot more than 120

kowtow · 11-09-2015 10:51AM

WheatenBriar wrote: »

In all the recent years I've been farming,Ive resigned myself to expecting a a decent price in only 1 out of 3 years
The fundamental problem isnt ours because unlike other industries, we can't strike
Therefore we lack the ability to educate the rest of the world into gaining a respect for the effort going into the most important thing in their lives,their food
If the people who constantly conspire to keep food prices down (and who promote the failed subsidy to the producer method of alleviation for this) had to go out and work on farms or else have no food,they might think differently

Its fundamentally a political problem, decades old that's strangling farmers

I think there is a lot in that summary. I see exactly the same problem - although I'm not sure I see it the same way around. I look at it more as a kind of "stalled industrial revolution" - as all farms moved to hugely increased production & specialisation - probably with the advent of artificial fertiliser - we hit a roadblock in some areas at least (dairy..) because the output per labour unit with livestock is inherently constrained, perhaps more so under the pasture system. At the same time the price of the most basic inputs (land & oil) has been driven up relentlessly, often by ourselves in an attempt to gain small efficiencies of scale. It's possible to draw a comparison between farmers in Ireland today and the coal industry in the UK during the 1980's..

In Irish dairy we have compounded the problem because we produce a premium product for a commodity market. In essence we are going to the trouble and expense of producing jeweller quality diamonds and then wondering why the manufacturers of saw blades won't pay Cartier prices for them. It's quite possible that we have no other choice as long as we want to produce 20 times as much milk as we drink, but I'm not quite that pessimistic. Ireland was a world exporter and price maker in dairy markets long before milk powder or pasture sward was invented.

It's quite instructive to look at the Amish in the US - for a long time I thought that the "tractor ban" was a religious thing, it turns out that in many Amish communities tractors are allowed in the yard, but not in the fields. The reason for this is to place a natural limit on the tendency to grab land at the expense of your neighbour - you can only work so much land with horses in a day. This in turn encourages both co-operation and diversity. As a matter of fact the Amish are, on most metrics, by far the most profitable farmers in the US which is some achievement.

Note; I am not advocating Amish / Organic / any other "alternative" form of farming as a solution for Ireland. I think it's possible to learn from a farming system / model without necessarily adopting it lock stock and barrel, whether it is the Amish or the South Island.

mf240 · 11-09-2015 12:21PM

There a man in the local town that spends his time standing at the traffic lights , talking to himself and shouting at the traffic. Id say even he knew milk prices would never hold.

kowtow · 11-09-2015 01:19PM

mf240 wrote: »

There a man in the local town that spends his time standing at the traffic lights , talking to himself and shouting at the traffic. Id say even he knew milk prices would never hold.

Those are traffic lights? bloody hell I knew I should have gone to Specsavers.

mf240 · 11-09-2015 01:41PM

kowtow wrote: »

Those are traffic lights? bloody hell I knew I should have gone to Specsavers.

If you get to the traffic lights youve passed specsavers.

A lot of people who need to go to specsavers cant find it:D:D

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 03:08PM

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Ah come on now Frazz you were at all the meetings yourself. Why didn't you stand up and say something. You can't distance yourself and blame everyone else for not doing anything, you're starting to sound like rangler here. As for the problems in Belview the dog in the street knows the problems down there. But farmers shouldn't have to pay for Glanbia's mistakes. Farmers produce a quality assured product and don't want to see it turned into dogfood.

Woa there, don't try and take what I said out of context. I was saying that at no time at any meeting did I once hear anyone mention the volatility that any reasonable person could see coming. We are being bombarded with it now that it's happening.

All I'm doing is relaying fact nothing more nothing less. Unfortunately some people cant handle the truth.

whelan2 · 11-09-2015 03:14PM

frazzledhome wrote: »

Woa there, don't try and take what I said out of context. I was saying that at no time at any meeting did I once hear anyone mention the volatility that any reasonable person could see coming. We are being bombarded with it now that it's happening.

All I'm doing is relaying fact nothing more nothing less. Unfortunately some people cant handle the truth.

when are glanbia setting the August price?

kowtow · 11-09-2015 03:57PM

frazzledhome wrote: »

Exactly, volatility and that's where we are. I doesn't mean we shouldn't process our milk. Take a look at the other EU countries rise in production and you'll soon see we are only bit players. A lot of countries France, Germany etc spill more than our increase

I'm afraid on reflection the word volatility was bandied around a bit without either the person speaking it or the person hearing it knowing what was really meant by it (not suggesting you frazz, just quoting yr post because you made me think of it!).

I think to many people it's a euphemism for lower prices .. but with a built in expectation of them snapping back up like a spring sooner or later.

There's additional confusion (witness the last couple of pages of this thread) in the suggestion that the current market price falls are connected to the end of the quota regime and/or the Russian situation. I'm certain that the first is not the case, and I'm not really convinced that the second has any real relevance either.

Actually monthly milk prices have been anything but volatile for the last year or more, they've been established in a pretty convincing and stable trend downwards. In terms of annual changes which matter to income of course volatility has been relatively high, although that has been the case since 2006-7 onwards. We certainly can't see the impact of quota removal on volatility at this early stage. I think if volatility is a result of quota removal it will actually be felt first in those countries with a significant liquid milk market (like the UK) as unconstrained liquid producers find themselves placing a larger or smaller amount of milk in the global commodity pool at much lower prices.

Today's low prices look much more like a significant correction in commodity markets, some would say a long overdue reversion to the mean. It's notable that the same is true for oil & grains which are closely linked to milk.

What isn't clear yet is whether we are going to return to a path much closer to the long term mean, with lower volatility and lower prices, or whether the roller-coaster has a few more turns - good or bad - left in it.

as Humpty Dumpty said "when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less"

Edit: which makes it even more important to try and understand the returns - the actual price - for which Irish milk is selling on world markets. Identifying a low in this part of the price cycle, relative to the 2009/10 prices, and ignoring support payments from co-ops, loyalty bonuses etc. would actually give us the first stab at working out the likely range of prices relative to other commodities (many of which are well traded & forecasted) for the next decade or so. Maybe not much comfort, but you can' t have a plan without some kind of meaningful forecast.

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 04:32PM

whelan2 wrote: »

when are glanbia setting the August price?

I presume next week

frazzledhome · 11-09-2015 04:42PM

kowtow wrote: »

I'm afraid on reflection the word volatility was bandied around a bit without either the person speaking it or the person hearing it knowing what was really meant by it (not suggesting you frazz, just quoting yr post because you made me think of it!).

I think to many people it's a euphemism for lower prices .. but with a built in expectation of them snapping back up like a spring sooner or later.

There's additional confusion (witness the last couple of pages of this thread) in the suggestion that the current market price falls are connected to the end of the quota regime and/or the Russian situation. I'm certain that the first is not the case, and I'm not really convinced that the second has any real relevance either.

Actually monthly milk prices have been anything but volatile for the last year or more, they've been established in a pretty convincing and stable trend downwards. In terms of annual changes which matter to income of course volatility has been relatively high, although that has been the case since 2006-7 onwards. We certainly can't see the impact of quota removal on volatility at this early stage. I think if volatility is a result of quota removal it will actually be felt first in those countries with a significant liquid milk market (like the UK) as unconstrained liquid producers find themselves placing a larger or smaller amount of milk in the global commodity pool at much lower prices.

Today's low prices look much more like a significant correction in commodity markets, some would say a long overdue reversion to the mean. It's notable that the same is true for oil & grains which are closely linked to milk.

What isn't clear yet is whether we are going to return to a path much closer to the long term mean, with lower volatility and lower prices, or whether the roller-coaster has a few more turns - good or bad - left in it.

as Humpty Dumpty said "when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less"

Edit: which makes it even more important to try and understand the returns - the actual price - for which Irish milk is selling on world markets. Identifying a low in this part of the price cycle, relative to the 2009/10 prices, and ignoring support payments from co-ops, loyalty bonuses etc. would actually give us the first stab at working out the likely range of prices relative to other commodities (many of which are well traded & forecasted) for the next decade or so. Maybe not much comfort, but you can' t have a plan without some kind of meaningful forecast.

As you know there will be burn off of producers. That will help the supply side and when price hits a low that the traders feel comfortable with they'll pile in rising it again. Demand is still running at 2% growth.

Buford T. Justice XIX · 11-09-2015 04:56PM

frazzledhome wrote: »

Woa there, don't try and take what I said out of context. I was saying that at no time at any meeting did I once hear anyone mention the volatility that any reasonable person could see coming. We are being bombarded with it now that it's happening.

All I'm doing is relaying fact nothing more nothing less. Unfortunately some people cant handle the truth.

Jeeze, frazz, this is what you should have posted:pac:

Milked out · 11-09-2015 05:04PM

Lake land down to 26.25c/l according to twitter.

whelan2 · 11-09-2015 06:05PM

Milked out wrote: »

Lake land down to 26.25c/l according to twitter.

what was it last month?

RightTurnClyde · 11-09-2015 06:05PM

US Dept of Agri price forecasts

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Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

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