Dairy cooperative First Milk has slashed its milk prices for the sixth time in as many months.

The cuts mean each one of the UK's major milk processors has announced further cuts over the past week, in many cases sending farmers' returns below the cost of production.  

Announcing November price rates for members, the processing group's chair, former farming minister Jim Paice said First Milk will cut farm-gate prices for its manufacturing pool by 0.3 pence per litre and for its liquid pool by 1 pence per litre.

The cuts mean liquid prices will slip to 24.1p per litre and manufacturing to 25.8ppl. Prices paid to farmers supplying the two pools have dropped by 8.4ppl and 6.7ppl respectively since the current round of price cuts began.

First Milk Chair Sir Jim said the cuts were made in response to continuing downward trends in the global dairy market and oversupply in the UK market.

The Former farming minister commented, "Since the start of September there have been three Global Dairy Trade auctions. Two of these auctions, including the one yesterday, have shown downward trends. Additionally, our milk production shows no sign of slowing down, and we are up 10% over the last few weeks alone. With our main sites operating close to maximum capacity, the vast majority of this additional volume is ultimately going into Westbury where net returns are below 20ppl.

"As well as maintaining our focus on doing whatever we can within our influence to mitigate the impact of these negative market conditions, we will continue to keep our milk prices in line with our projected market returns."