DAIRY farmers in the county are facing challenges as dairy giants drop farmgate milk prices

The announcements come as the spring flush is fast approaching which will see increased supplies of milk on the market.

Arla has taken the biggest plunge and has dropped significantly from April 1 as the co-operative has announced a 5.30p per litre decrease.

Its farmgate milk price will fall to 39.64p per litre for a standard manufacturing litre, while organic producers will receive 44.42p per litre. The co-op, which is supplied by 3,000 UK farmers, said that the severity of the cost-of-living crisis and volatile economic environment was continuing to negatively impact consumer demand for milk.

Arla Foods director, Arthur Fearnall, said commodity prices continued to decline significantly especially as global milk volumes increase overall. He said the outlook is moving towards stabilisation as commodity markets get closer to balance.

Paul Savage, agriculture director for Arla UK, added that milk supply in the UK had continued to grow in the last month, with milk supplies up 3.2 percent compared with March 2022. “This increase in supply has not only been seen in the UK but also across Europe and the globe,” he explained.

“When coupled with a decline in dairy consumption and an overall decline in shopping spending, with 75 percent of people cutting expenditure on food, this is creating a change in the supply and demand of milk.We recognise that some of our farmer owners continue to face increasing input costs on farm and as a farmer owned cooperative we are doing all we can to continue to support our farmer owners.”

Meanwhile, First Milk, owners of the Lake District Creamery at Aspatria, has announced that its member milk price will reduce by 3.40ppl from May 1, taking its price to 39.29 ppl for a manufacturing standard litre, including the member premium.

Robert Craig, farmer director and vice-chairman, said: “We are very conscious of the challenges facing dairy farming businesses arising from the speed and scale with which milk prices have reduced across the market. Whilst current market circumstances are unwelcome, as always, we will continue to work to maximise our members’ milk price in the months ahead.”

GB milk production is forecast to reach 12.44 billion litres for the 2022/2023 season, up 0.7 percent on the previous season.