Margins per litre of milk register marked increase
According to the annual Kingshay Dairy Costing Focus Report, margins over feed purchased for conventional dairy herds have increased by almost 25 percent in the last 10 years.
A 14 percent increase in margins per litre has also been registered. Kathryn Rowland, senior farm services manager at Kingshay has explained that margins have increased despite rises in purchased feed costs, likely mitigated by increases in yield, milk from forage and milk price, but other costs of production, such as labour have also increased over the period.
Lower input grazing focused herds have given the best results on a per litre basis but the year-round calving, housing focused systems produced the best margin over purchased feed per cow. A combination of additional grazing days, more milk from forage and higher milk prices meant that low to moderate yielding organic dairies averaged the highest margin over purchased feed per litre.
Producers evidently managed to increase forage use after the drought of 2018, with the average milk from forage across all conventional herds increasing to make up 32.9 percent of yields (2,759 litres) in 2019/20, up from 29.8 percent (2,486 litres) the previous year
