- Location
- North yorks
That’s a question for those with greater knowledge than me, I know the last couple of springs Arla have struggled with capacity to process all the milk coming in.
Arla
- Thread starter jade35
- Start date
buffalo_soldier
Member
- Location
- cumbria
Yes I'm aware of all that. Next you'll be telling me that it's cost neutral.
My question came about because it's been going for a few years now. So was curious how many involved in its design have altered profile in that time.
farmer on a bike
Member
I was and am still on the seasonality working group. We pushed our spring herds calving back later in February but our autumn herds are unchanged. The current scheme has helped stop the seasonality get much worse but it has not improved it. We have been looking at options and as we have warned owners we are likely to give notice of an updated scheme before too long. The plan is to give plenty of notice so the updated scheme will not start until January 24 giving farmers time to take action.
There are a number of block calvers on the working group and the process this time has taken much longer as we have done a lot of in depth work to understand where the spring milk is coming from and also where the trough milk is not coming from if that makes sense.
farmer on a bike
Member
The base milk price reflects the current market but that does not make it sensible to stop working to correct milk supply seasonality for the longer term in a way that would send totally the wrong signals. In the longer term Arla will supply a higher milk price with a more level supply.
- Location
- somerset
processors want even production, so organise their rates, to try and achieve that, minus in the spring, plus in the aut. We just have to work around that basis, to max our payment.
Not sure what will happen this year, think many processors are thinking large spring flush, that l don't think will occur.
Not sure what will happen this year, think many processors are thinking large spring flush, that l don't think will occur.
- Location
- South Molton
This has come up on more than one occasion in various discussions, spring calvers need notice of any changes.
I would have liked more than 2 days notice of a substantial price cut/ feed cost increase on my winter milk!
Most changes seems to pander to spring producers from what I have seen.
buffalo_soldier
Member
- Location
- cumbria
I won't hold my breath then
. I've heard we're looking at it before.I actually think the mechanism isn't too bad to be fair, it can even be used to manipulate supply to get the desired result. It just depends how serious you are.
Doing the same scheme yoy and expecting different results seems unlikely.
Magnifying the penalty/bonus by a factor of 10 would achieve a rapid response.
Somewhere in between, less so.
Don't make it more complex than it needs to be.
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
Which is the bigger issue for Arla, spring peak or summer trough?
farmer on a bike
Member
I know this is not particularly helpful but the answer is both. Last year the spring peak was too high but lowering total production with the same profile as we have now would leave the business badly short of trough milk. If you looked very simply at building more capacity just to cope with the peak that factory would only operate for about 4 weeks currently. If ( I do say If) we could level the profile we could build a factory to make a more profitable product year round and keep just our current balancing capacity to manage a lower seasonality variation.
- Location
- somerset
guilty of that. We are required to produce autumn milk, but autumn milk is not defined. So we said we will calve nov + or 0 -. No problem. So our really dry time, is july aug sept, if the cows are dry/ing off then, no grass is ok. By not calving aug/sept, save 2 months of tmr, and the cows should still be milking well at turnout. Seasonality is done by % over/under spring aut, and should miss most of it, nice and simple.Umm small amount of proper spring calvers, most of the peak will come from poorly fed AYR, who rocket up as soon as turn out happens and some of the Autumn calving herd who think November, December and January is the Autumn
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
I would have thought that was about the least desirable milk profile for most buyers.
- Location
- somerset
they haven't said they don't like it, suits us very well, a mix of both.
Cows 'n grass
Member
- Location
- Modbury, South Devon
This was my profile last year, all spring calving over 11 weeks from 18th of February.
Obviously we don't help the spring peak but for 5 months production is relatively level and cows are still producing well through the summer trough until the autumn calving herds start pumping in October.
Obviously we don't help the spring peak but for 5 months production is relatively level and cows are still producing well through the summer trough until the autumn calving herds start pumping in October.
frederick
Member
- Location
- south west
But the trouble is you and me (Autumn calver) combined don't level each other out. I scaled my profile to match the same total output as yourself.
| Cows n grass | Frederick | | Combined | |
Jan | 40530 | 297697 | | 338227 | 88% |
Feb | 28415 | 241796 | | 270211 | 70% |
Mar | 161524 | 238524 | | 400048 | 104% |
Apr | 270422 | 219588 | | 490010 | 127% |
May | 319569 | 205796 | | 525365 | 136% |
Jun | 270897 | 163033 | | 433930 | 113% |
Jul | 264792 | 105057 | | 369849 | 96% |
Aug | 261571 | 29861 | | 291432 | 76% |
Sep | 225368 | 47484 | | 272852 | 71% |
Oct | 187061 | 226128 | | 413189 | 107% |
Nov | 160186 | 269630 | | 429816 | 112% |
Dec | 119730 | 267578 | | 387308 | 101% |
| 2310065 | 2312171 | | 4622236 | |
| | | | 385186 | |
So is AYR treadmillers need a premium for our level profile. Sounds familiar
Jdunn55
Member
- Location
- Helston, cornwall
Surely all that needs to happen to sort that out is to offer a decent enough bonus to make either ayr calving worthwhile or else late spring/early summer calving?
We calf when we do to match grass growth, for us to switch to winter milk would need to spend 750k for better winter housing, can't see them giving that sort of carrot to make us move
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- Location
- somerset
in the longer term, farmers would tweak calving to adapt to that, so no real difference.
But does the +seasonality cover the extra costs of autumn calving ? For those that calve late july, august and into september, are adding 2 months of either a lot of buffer feeding, or 2 months tmr, both of those are quite expensive. A lot depends on type of cow you have, more fr or xbred, would produce aut milk, off grass, with less buffer than the hol, that probably need a tmr.
The other point, block calving does save a lot of money, through efficiency of management, so just following seasonality payments/deductions, is not quite so simple, as nothing ever is. We have gone for a 'hybrid' in the middle, sort of system, which looks as though it should work for us, though a little bit by 'accident', we had to produce an amount of autumn milk, for our contract, and nov calvers, were cheaper than august/sept ones.
Jdunn55
Member
- Location
- Helston, cornwall
Exactly, it would have to be a considerable bonus and if they aren't willing to do it, then they are going to have to accept that there will be a spring flush and a summer troughWe calf went we do to match grass growth, for us to switch to winter milk would need to spend 750k for better winter housing, can't see them giving that sort of carrot to make us move
They don't need to research it, it's obvious, people do what makes sense financially, in order for them to do differently their needs to be some sort of financial advantage which will only happen with bonuses or penalties and quite frankly I don't think anyone should be penalised for calving at the wrong time of year