DAIRY co-operative Arla has announced a June farmgate milk price rise saying it would be welcome news for their farmers who are becoming ‘increasingly pressured’ by rising arm costs.

Arla has announced its on-account price for conventional and organic milk will increase by 0.5 euro cents per kilo from June 1. This spells good news for Cumbria’s dairy farmers.

This means when applied to the standard manufacturing litre Arla’s milk price will increase by 0.44ppl to 33.23ppl for conventional milk and 41.59ppl pence per litre for organic milk.

Arla Foods amba board director, and farmer owner, Arthur Fearnall, said: “Once again, this will be welcome news for our farmer owners who are becoming increasingly pressured by rising on farm costs.

“Commodity market prices have overall remained relatively stable in April.”

He added: “Powder demand has been strong with increasing prices, while butter and cheese prices have weakened. Overall, so far, European milk intake has been lower than last year; however, intake has started to pick up with a small increase through March and April. The current outlook remains stable.”

Alice Swift, UK Agriculture director at Arla, said May brought a sense of optimism as the UK reopens and a ‘welcome light at the end of the tunnel’ for the food service industry. “The gradual opening-up of the country does mean that we are now seeing an expected shift in consumer and shopping habits in the retail sector, in products and brands which benefited most from the lockdowns over the past 14 months. We continue to work hard to ensure the most value for our farmer owners for the milk they produce.”