The end of March will see the ending of Milk Marque trading, due to the enforced break-up brought about by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Milk Link, the successor co-op for the South and South West will have started trading (1st April) by the time you read this.
For the last month or two the dairy trade have been talking the milk price down and Dairy crest have informed their direct suppliers that their milk price will fall again from April. I was delighted to hear this week that Milk Link have been very successful, in their negotiations with the milk buyers and have also been able to reduce costs. As a result Milk Link have announced a small price increase. This is excellent news for farmers who stayed with Milk Marque and have now become founder members of Milk link. While other farmers who sell direct to Dairies are having their milk price dictated to them, Milk Link members, through co-operation, are negotiating a higher price. Farmers who have benefited from a higher price which was paid by the Dairies to encourage farmers to leave Milk Marque and thus weaken Milk Marque and in turn helped the Dairies drive the milk price down, will now have to pay to join Milk Link. I hope that having got a good start Milk Link will continue to flourish.
Although the short term prospects are not good, and many dairy farmers are selling up their cows, and in many cases, their farms as well, I am becoming more confident that the longer term prospects are quite good. Perhaps it was the sunshine, or possibly the quality of the cows on offer, but judging by the trade in Holsworthy Market a couple of weeks ago, there seemed to be a mood of confidence.
At home the recent fine weather has enabled us to spread the first application of fertiliser, spread some slurry, and roll the silage ground. We started letting the cows out to grass daytimes on march 18th and have benefited from increased milk yield and reduced feeding costs. We expect to end the milk year about 1.3% over Quota which will hopefully mean that we will not be liable for super-levy. For the past two years we have let the cows out in March and then had to house them again in April due to bad weather. Hopefully this year we will have a good Spring which is always very beneficial because it reduces feed costs now and also results in better quality 1st cut silage. With milk prices so low, good weather will make all the difference.