WIREDGOV

Deputy Minister for Farming and Food, Rebecca Evans, recently met with the Chairman of First Milk, Sir Jim Paice, to discuss delays to payments to some Welsh milk producers.

The co-operative announced they would be deferring payments to their members until 26 January, with all future payments also deferred by 2 weeks.

First Milk also decided to reverse the 1.1 pence per litre of the planned February milk price reductions for the manufacturing and liquid pools, increase members’ capital investment and increase members’ capital investment target from 5 to 7 pence per litre.

Following their announcement on 8 January, the Deputy Minister said she would be seeking urgent talks with First Milk.

Following the meeting at First Milk's Haverfordwest Creamery, Rebecca Evans said:

“I have spoken to farmers who tell me how concerned they are about what the deferred payments mean for the cash flow of their farming businesses.

"I sought an urgent meeting with First Milk to better understand how the co-operative had found itself in this position, and to satisfy myself that the suite of actions taken by First Milk will be enough to put them on a sound footing.
 
“First Milk say that the actions they have taken have helped to raise enough capital to stem their own cash flow problems and put the business on a sound financial footing once again.
 
“Sir Jim assured me he had spoken with the banks in light of their decision and had found them to be sympathetic to the farmers’ situation."

First Milk is a farmer-owned GB milk co-operative with around 1,600 members. It deals with smaller and more geographically remote farms.  There are 400 Welsh dairy producers in the co-operative and the vast majority of milk produced in Wales goes to Haverfordwest Creamery to produce cheese and other milk products.

In December, the Deputy Minister announced a review of the dairy sector in Wales, which is being led by Andy Richardson. The review aims to set out a long-term strategic direction for the dairy industry, taking views from all in the Welsh supply chain and is due to report in the coming weeks.