Farm organisations yesterday vowed to vigorously fight milk price cuts when they protested outside Glanbia's Kilkenny headquarters over its four cent per gallon cut in manufacturing milk.

In a rare show of farm unity, both the Irish Farmers' Association president, John Dillon, and his counterpart from the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, Pat O'Rourke, warned the creameries they would not tolerate further cuts.

He said that the co-operatives still had plenty of fat, inefficiencies and duplication to cut out. Dairy farmers could not keep taking cuts because they could not produce milk more cheaply as costs were continuing to rise.

"The cut will cost the average Glanbia producer €2,400, a 12 per cent cut in the average income of a dairy farmer and it has to be said that, since 2001, this company has cut milk prices by 18 cent per gallon," he said.

Mr O'Rourke, a member of the Irish Dairy Board, said farmers still represented the largest shareholding in the co-operative and should use that power and reject the proposal.

Dermot Lally, who leads the liquid milk producers' group FMP, said the Glanbia board dairy farmer representatives should resign if they could not reverse the cuts.

A Glanbia spokeswoman said the reduction was unavoidable and came as a result of reductions in EU supports of approximately eight cent per gallon.