Milk figures skewed by leap year?
By Farmers Weekly staff
LATEST milk figures released by the Intervention Board for February suggest that production rose during the month, with provisional butterfat adjusted deliveries put at almost 1.1 billion litres, almost 1.4% over profile.
But producers should take a close look before taking action, warns Jonathan Smith of Bruton Knowles Quota Exchange.
“No allowance has been made for the fact that 2000 is a leap year. Dont be panicked into buying quota – production is not rising.”
Brussels takes account of 29 February by allowing 1/60th of February and March output to be deducted from the milk year total.
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That calculation will be too late for producers to fine-tune production now so brokers have deducted a days output from the February figures.
This makes a big difference, cutting butterfat-adjusted deliveries by about 37m litres to 1.045bn litres, about 2% below quota.
And the cumulative excess for the milk year so far falls from almost 121m litres to 83.5m litres.
Assuming production remains steady during March, the UK could end up over quota by about that amount, says Mr Smith.
“But people are putting the brakes on, and drying off as many cows as they can. This could reduce the figure a bit.”
- Dairy producers dump more milk, FWi, today (08 March, 2000)
- Dairy farmers threaten to dump milk, FWi, yesterday (07 March, 2000)
- Milk Price Review