Financial implications of increasing milk protein

Current milk pricing arrangements favour milk protein over milk fat by almost 2:1. The continued trend for semi-skimmed milk and increasing world cheese consumption are likely to maintain this pricing policy. Pricing arrangements encourage the production of milk that has a high compositional quality and attracts bonus payments. Butterfat is subject to quota limitations while protein is not. Thus, raising protein levels provides an obvious means of increasing the value of every litre of milk produced.

At current pricing arrangements, raising milk protein is worth approximately

£20/lactation for every 0.10 percent increase in milk protein concentration. For a 50 cow herd yielding 7,000 litres, raising milk protein from 3.2 percent to 3.6 percent increases income by £4,500.

The Protein ImproverProject was set up to demonstrate the management skills necessary to increase milk protein and demonstrate the financial benefits on Northern Ireland farms. The findings of independent research into increasing protein production have been put into practice at farm level and the results to date have been summarised in Table 7 and protein production compared to the Northern Ireland average in Figure 5.

Table 7. Performance of the Protein Improver herd at Greenmount Campus

Silage quality during the first winter feeding period of the project (1996/97) was excellent with the result that average milk protein similar to that produced during the 1998/99 year, was produced at a saving of over 300 KG of concentrate. From Table 7, the importance of first cut silage quality to milk protein production in an autumn calving situation is evident.

High dry matter silage is not a cheap feed source for dairy cows. Compared to the cost of grazed grass, quality silage is 2.5 times more expensive with concentrates around 3.25 times more expensive in terms of relative feed cost. The relative cost per tonne of dry matter takes into account variable and fixed costs including storage and feeding plus a rental value for land of £250/ha. High quality silage made on the farm should always be offered to the highest producing cows. The costs of the Protein Improver Herd are compared with information gathered from a range of dairy farms across Northern Ireland, Table 8.

Table 8: Comparison of production costs for the Protein Improver Herd

The selection of high protein bulls can incur extra expense. However this is dependent on the actual bulls selected. As with any system of producing milk, maximising production from grass and silage will assist in controlling costs.

In order to assess the impact of raising milk protein a group of eight farmers are working with Greenmount to assess the full financial implications. Summary details of participating farms are presented in Table 9. The farms involved operate a range of systems of milk production in various locations across Northern Ireland and have various levels of protein production. All farmers involved are keen to raise milk protein from the current levels given in Table 9

Table 9: Details of farms involved in the Protein Improvement Project

It is intended that other farmers interested in raising milk protein will be able to visit these farms and assess the practical as well as financial issues involved.