Farming News - Milk production remains within UK quota

Milk production remains within UK quota

 

 

At the beginning of the month, the Rural Payments Agency confirmed that there will be no wholesale or direct sales levy for the 2013/14 quota year, as milk production in Britain remained within the country's EU quota.

 

UK wholesale milk deliveries totalled 13.7 billion litres – 1.6 billion litres under the national wholesale quota. The UK's direct sales amounted to 109.7 million litres – 33 million litres under the national direct sales quota.

 

Early figures seemed to suggest that bumper milk production (which reached a 20-year high for December) could lead to the UK exceeding its quota if the trend continued, though many in the industry disputed this, and reported that increased production in winter was in response to good conditions and positive market signals.

 

The EU has the power to impose a levy price on milk production exceeding the quota. This would have been around 24 pence per litre, if the country as a whole had exceeded its quota; the levy would have gone towards the cost of 'subsidised disposal methods' such as intervention buying, export refunds or consumption aids. In the event, because UK producers remained under the limit for the 2013/14 year, there will be no wholesale or direct sales levy.

 

Britain has not exceeded its milk quota for ten years. The EU quota system will come to an end in 2015.

 

For now though, 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 government's website at the beginning of each month.

 

RPA said on Friday that its data is based on end of year declarations and that figures are provisional and could be subject to amendment in the light of inspection of purchasers’ and producers’ annual returns.