2014 Milkbench+ Report

The annual Milkbench Evidence report has been published.  The report surveyed 322 farms across Great Britain with financial year ends between December 2012 and July 2013.  The report looks at difference between top and bottom performers as well as different production systems (cows at grass, composite, high output cows).  The graph below shows the financial performance of dairy enterprises.  It clearly shows the top 25% have better resource use and are the only ones to be have a positive net margin from production during this 2012/13 period.  The average net margin is -0.9ppl.  Although the top 25% achieved a slightly higher milk yield than the bottom 25% (93 litres per cow per year) they used fewer resources at lower prices.  This results in a net margin for the top 25% of 5.3ppl compared to -8.7ppl for the bottom quartile.

 DAIRY ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE (PPL) 2012/13 – Source: DairyCo Milkbench+

Other key findings were:

• Average net margin was 2.3ppl lower than the 2011/12 year, predominately due to the difficult weather and increasing feed costs
• The top 25% of producers in all three enterprise types achieved positive margins.  Cows at grass performed best at 6.2ppl
• The four key areas for differences in costs of production are feed, labour, power and machinery and depreciation.

The Milkbench+ evidence report can be found at http://www.dairyco.org.uk/resources-library/technical-information/milkbenchplus/milkbenchplus-evidence-report-2014/#.UwXk-M68pc4.  More investigation and analysis of the key areas of the report will be published at a later date.