Dairy Farmer Hardship applications open on 18th June

Following on from last nights (Tuesday) news story on this website and in our free market bulletin, DEFRA have this morning issued a press release confirming qualifying English Dairy Farmers can apply for up to £10,000 to help assist with the financial impact of coronavirus on April and May deliveries.

To be absolutely clear this is nothing to do with when the deliveries made were actually paid into your bank accounts its about the average base price you were paid in the calendar month for April deliveries compared to that paid on February deliveries.

The calculation is based on the milk purchaser’s base price (for A, B and in one case C milk if that mechanism is used by your purchaser) with ALL adjustments for milk quality, volume collected, frequency of collection, seasonality NOT taken into account.

Note the £10,000 is not a per month maximum it’s a total maximum for April and May combined and it only applies to cows milk.

The new dairy response fund will open for applications on 18 June and the details are as provisionally outlined in yesterday’s bulletin with the first payments to flow from 6th July . The mechanism as to how it will be paid rests entirely with the RPA.

Without doubt some farmers will loose out and potentially by a fraction of a % meaning they don’t cross the 25% threshold. It’s hoped the aid will get to those most affected and to be brutally honest the package has come at a time when there are unprecedented pressure on a very stretched public purse so overall it’s a welcome fund but could be frustrating for some.

One area of concern, highlighted by RABDF today, is how farmers who dumped milk in early to mid April 2020 will be able to verify the volumes dumped because they won’t be recorded. However, given our notes indicate few if an farmer’s had to dump milk for more than three days maximum it should be easy to take a straight line average between the last delivery before dumping and the first delivery post dumping or a similar permutation.

Then there is the fact the dumping of the milk could mean some who would have qualified for the payment had they delivered the dumped milk could fall under the 25% rule post dumping.

(https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dairy-response-fund-set-to-open-for-applications)