Nine days-worth of milk lost in old quota year

By FWi staff

MILK production for the 2000/2001 quota year was almost 350 million litres below profile, according to latest provisional figures released by the Intervention Board.

Total production for the year was 13.64 billion litres, a shortfall of almost 2.5% or 9 days supply.

Last month production was over profile for only the third time during the year. Producers delivered 1.19bn butterfat adjusted litres, nearly 7m litres above quota.

“Movement restrictions have meant that more cows are being kept back on farms, and during March not much of the dairy herd had been culled,” says Jonathan Smith of BK National Quota Exchange.

“But production during the first month of the new quota year is lower than expected as a proportion has now been culled, although the exact figure is not clear.

“Cows are also being kept inside, whereas they would normally be turned out by now and production would start to go up.”

However, Mr Smith is optimistic and suggests that, if the foot-and-mouth crisis doesnt take too strong a hold, producers should be on for a bumper year.

“Milk prices have finally started to lift and, if farmers get a good crop of silage and the weather improves on last year, it is possible that they will be near profile – production will definitely have recovered within two years.”