The Weekly Dairy Report: Prices ease on the back of rising global production and satisfactory Chinese stocks.

Winter weather with snow and heavy frosts arrived with a vengeance in the south, and dropped temperatures in many parts of NZ.

This will encourage those still milking to dry off, teat seal, use dry cow therapy and get cows settled into winter grazing.

Gypsy week arrives with June and those sharemilkers that have been carefully planning their shift will minimize the stress on animals and have a successful start to the new farm.

The use of fodder beet as a quality brassica feed for winter grazing is growing, but advisers warn managers to be very careful in transition as acidosis poisoning can result if animals eat too much of this crop early on.

The latest dairy auction saw prices decline for the seventh time in a row even with lower volumes offered, and values are now back to June 2012 levels.

Plentiful production is the main cause as reports reveal that the EU herd has expanded for the first time in 30 years, and Ireland is rapidly ramping up milk flows ahead of quota removal next April.

Fonterra adjusts this year’s payout downward to $8.40/kg ms and reveals its first guess at 2015’s price levels at $7.00 which caused little surprise and is in tune with market expectations.

A poor turnout of sharemilkers has been reported for the Dairy Levy vote and they have been encouraged to have their say in this investment in their industries future.

A review of the migrant dairy labour force is underway as illegal work practices have been reported as a minority has been exploiting this valuable resource.