Differen ce of up to €1,000 in August milk cheque for 80 cow-herd

THE Chairperson of ICMSA’s Dairy Committee said that he was not sure that everyone appreciated the kind of difference that existed between the top and bottom paying Co-ops and how that translated into what Gerald Quain said was “serious money”.

“The ‘Rule of Thumb’ that we’d work off is that every 1 cent per litre works out to approximately €400 per month for a standard 80 cow-herd supplying 400,000 litres. If we start looking at it from that point of view, then the difference between those Coops paying 31cpl for August milk and the top paying Co-ops is coming out at around €800 for their August cheque,” said Mr Quain.

“If we go back to those Co-ops paying around 30.5cpl then the difference between them and the top paying Coops becomes an absolutely enormous €1000 for just August milk.”

Noting that ICMSA accepted that across-the-board comparison might be too crude and ignore certain annualised factors, Mr. Quain was still adamant that “any way you want to measure it”, there was still a massive gap between the milk price paid to farmers supplying different Co-ops that simply could not be explained away.

“We’ve nothing against bonuses, but we have always said that bonuses – however they are described or labelled – should only be paid on top of the highest base milk price”, said Mr. Quain.