DAIRY farmers are planning to expand milk production according to a survey conducted at last week's Dairy Event. The survey shows that 60 per cent of those farmers interviewed intend to expand milk production during the next 12 months, by an average of 15 per cent.

The farmers who participated in the survey currently produce an average of 1.5 million litres of milk. Barclays spoke to around 70 farmers with milk production ranging from 350,000 litres to 6 million litres.

Euryn Jones, Barclays Agricultural Policy Director said: "Dairy producers of all sizes told us that they intend to increase production, but the highest proportion of expanders already produce over 1 million litres. The majority of those who produce less than 1 million litres told us that they would not be expanding this year."

Barclays also asked farmers about their use of the Single Payment, which dairy farmers received for the first time earlier this year. Encouragingly, 76 per cent said that they had made a conscious decision about how to use the payment and of those: 45 per cent admitted that the payment was used to contribute towards the funding of day to day running expenses on the farm.

34 per cent said that the Single Payment had been used to reduce bank borrowing; 21 per cent said that the money was used to service borrowing on new investment on the farm; 17 per cent said that the money had been used for other purposes, such as investing in diversification projects, buying property or investing in a pension policy.

No one said that they had used the money to supplement private expenditure.