The Rural Payments Agency has announced that milk production increased in the UK in 2011/12. RPA made the announcement after receiving data from the UK’s milk buyers. The agency announced last week that, although more milk was produced last year, production remained within Britain’s EU quota, so no wholesale or direct sales levy for will be incurred for the 2011/12 quota year.

UK wholesale milk deliveries totalled 13.5 billion litres – 1.47 billion litres below the national wholesale quota. Direct sales amounted to 124.6 million litres - 18.3 million litres below the direct sales quota.

RPA said that, as its data is based on end of year declarations by milk buyers, figures remain provisional and could be subject to some amendment in the light of inspection of purchasers’ and producers’ annual returns. The agency said any business that buys raw or bulk milk direct from farmers has a duty to report the amount they buy on a monthly basis, so the industry can see how deliveries are running compared to the UK’s quota allocation during the year. These indicative figures are published on the RPA website at the beginning of each month.

In the UK, discussions and demonstrations continue over milk prices, which UK producers claim are unsustainable. Dairy coalitions of farmers, unions and rural interest groups have said farmers are being placed at a disadvantage in the current distribution model; they claim producers have not received the benefits of milk‘s recent increase in profitability.

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