Union chief: Milk rise due to warm weather
Good weather and "favourable market conditions" are reasons why farmers have been producing more milk, union bosses have revealed.
The National Farmers' Union has been reacting to news that UK wholesale milk deliveries totalled 1,141.6 million litres in September, the sixth month of the new milk year.
At the same time last year this figure was 1,062.7 million litres, data released by the Rural Payments Agency shows.
The cumulative total for the year is now 7,397.7 million litres. At the same point in 2013 this figure was 6,845.5 million litres.
The figures have been released at a time when farmers from across Shropshire and Mid Wales have taken part in protests over a drop in the prices they are being paid to produce milk.
Protests, organised by campaign group Farmers for Action, took place outside Shropshire-based dairy, Muller Wiseman, on Monday, and at an unnamed target in Somerset last night.
Robert Newbery, NFU West Midlands regional director, said: "Like most countries around the world, UK milk production is still increasing. Reasons for the increased output include favourable market conditions earlier in the year, with decent weather conditions for dairy production.
"In the long term, increasing the amount of milk produced will put Shropshire dairy farmers and those across the country in a strong position to respond to growing global demand.
Regrettably though, the short term consequence is price volatility and this is currently delivering unsustainable low prices for UK dairy farmers."
A statement by Farmers for Action said: "People will say you cannot buck global milk prices, we remind everyone over 80 per cent of milk produced in this country is used domestically. Therefore we should not be subject to these severe price cuts."
