Farmer Focus: Milk price cut forces delay in improvements

After a couple of years of receiving around 50p/litre for our milk, going into 2026 at about 35p/litre is unwelcome, but not unexpected.

For me, it means a couple of purchases have had to be postponed.

See also: Advice on investing in a cover for a slurry lagoon or tank

About the author

Tom Hildreth

Livestock Farmer Focus writer Tom Hildreth and family grow grass and maize for the 130-cow herd of genomically tested 11,000-litre Holsteins near York supplying Arla. The Hildreths run a café, ice cream business and milk vending machine on the farm.

Read more articles by Tom Hildreth

I was looking at buying a new diet feeder – at 12 years old, ours is starting to show its age.

Instead, I have welded the odd patch in and I’ll be replacing the belt next week to try to give it another year and make it still worth something to trade in.

The slurry channels and slats are in, and although we have left it ready for rubber matting, by concreting the floor around the slats an inch higher, I’ll have to put rubber matting top of the shopping list for later in the year.

We have 25 extra cubicles getting installed in the coming weeks. With more heifers to calve this summer than we have ever had before, we need the capacity in the shed.

Robots will also be working closer to capacity. Currently, we have 33% free time, which was intentional for the first year.

Something I can’t postpone is the slurry store going up next month – and not a moment too soon. I have been exporting slurry to a friend’s lagoon to avoid the overflowing of ours.

The completion of this store will allow us the capacity to use slurry in the right place, at the right time, and remove slurry anxiety.

In a way, I’m looking forward to getting that paid for, as when you know there is a large chunk of cash spoken for that’s sat in the bank account, it can feel a bit constricting.

After three years of writing Farmer Focus articles for Farmers Weekly, I’m passing on the baton to someone else.

Since starting to write, the farm has come a long way, with milking robots, calf shed and handling race in 2025; an entire slurry handling system with channels, slats, pump, separator, collector robot and store in 2024 and 2026; and retailing milk and ice cream in 2022.

I have enjoyed documenting my farming life for you and hope you enjoyed reading it – and I look forward to reading what the next guy has to say.