What A Difference A Year Makes!

This time last year we were warning our clients of rapidly rising income from significantly rising milk prices with the potential to increase profits significantly.  With forage in short supply after a dry summer in 2022 and the feed to milk price favourable to fill the forage gap with bought in feeds, milk production increased with more cows being retained in herds and higher yields resulting from the purchased feed.

The shortage of feed raw materials due to the War in Ukraine resulted in concentrate prices increasing significantly resulting in an overall feed cost increase of £471/cow or 127% of the 2021-22 profit per cow.  Purchased feed was 37% of total costs.


At The Dairy Event on the 4^th October we published our Annual Cost of Production review in association with Old Mill Accountants.

https://tinyurl.com/Cost-of-Production-22-23

The gap between the top and bottom 10% gets ever wider.  Those herds which were higher yielding and had higher cow numbers took full advantage of the higher milk price tended to be in the top 10%, though not exclusively.  All year round calving herds tend to be the higher yielding and were more flexible in adapting to the milk price increase, holding onto more cows and could see a quicker response to increased concentrate feeding due to the different stages in lactation within the herd. Block calved herds tend to be fixed management systems focused on getting cows back in calf, not maximising production, when cows are in peak milk.  

To benchmark your dairy business against local up to date data and highlight your financial strengths and weaknesses contact Gerard at gerardfinnan@fcgagric.com or Tel 07976 426420