The North Island and most areas in the south are experiencing moist warm weather that has stimulated good growing conditions but eastern provinces from Marlborough to North Otago need rain before the early summer drying winds start.
Surplus feed is are being made into silage in the north and managers in the south are noting changes in pasture quality with some seed head emergence as they adjust rotation length to grow grass or tidy up the quality of the sward.
Paddocks are being taken out of the rotation for summer feed crops with early establishment important, so that when this area is renewed back into to grass in the autumn, there is time for one grazing before winter.
Those in summer dry areas need good crops to be able to maintain production over the feed deficit period as financial security will be dependent on good milk flows in a low payout year.
Reports are now indicating that the dairy sector may be facing a prolonged period of lower prices as the market works it’s way through the growing supply of stocks, and pressure is on for farmers to trim their farm working expenses to the bone.
Mating is under way in the north and much of the herds efficency will be determined by how successful managers have been preparing their cows during this time with a quick, tightly spread joining having a big influence on days in milk as the important production parameter.
The Lincoln University dairy farm has reduced it’s cow numbers by 70 and so far has still been able to maintain it’s historical production targets as it looks to use less than half the amount of fertilizer N, and reduce the nitrate loss by 10% by better utilization of existing pasture.
The Dairy Industry has been urged to look after their employees as scrutiny of workplace conditions and records comes under the spotlight.
Winter cow grazing crops are soon to be sown and more fodder beet is predicted to be used as improving establishment and growing skills are now giving more reliable and heavier yields to ensure this feed has a low cost/kg dm grown.
7 Comments
Pause.
some reading for the half day, this from a North American think tank, reminding us that export trade is a full body contact sport:
Within the dairy industry, New Zealand is a giant. However, the neocooperative and free market management system has attracted the ire of larger competitors such as the United States and the European Union.
New Zealand’s biggest challenges and obstacles lie ahead. While potential trade deals may have serious implications for competition and trade, their realisation is poor, and although most other countries are reluctant to compete with Fonterra, the United States, in particular, looks ready to roll up its sleeves and challenge New Zealand’s dairy industry dominance. As in the past, New Zealand must now be aggressive and innovative in finding new markets, maintaining their export base and standing their ground in the face of cut-throat and unapologetic international competition.
http://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/no37_0.pdf
New Zealand has not so much a comparative advantage as a geographic one.
New Zealand persists in the TPP negotiations with the increasingly forlorn hope of greater access to the US dairy market, despite the obvious fact that that will not happen. The United States is an intense competitor in overseas markets, and likely to become more so. However, neither the European Union nor the United States will liberalize their milk markets to a competitor such as New Zealand. As well, the TPP is bound for failure, the result of American arrogance and exceptionalism and Japanese resistance, which will leave Wellington’s policy in tatters. It will be left to the likes of DairyAmerica and its increasingly focused export crusade to East Asia to put dents into Fonterra’s ambitions, presumably with the help of the US overnment, as conditions warrant. and then from the with friends like these Ozward: AN ANNUAL nine-billion litre national dairy industry is unable to service growing domestic and export markets, Rabobank has warned. http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/business/dairy/dairy-industry-unable-to-service-growing-markets-rabobank/story-fnkeqg0i-1227091537578 Rabobank senior dairy analyst Michael Harvey said in a report titled Australian Dairy - More Milk Matters that current national production cannot service a domestic market that is “very mature … but still has some growth”, as well as international customers with consumption growth rates of 3-4 per cent a year.Rabobank said Australia is well positioned to tap into export markets but an inability to grow milk is reducing its role in the global dairy trade.
and
https://www.rabobank.com/en/research/food-agribusiness/duisenberg-report-10-big-ideas.html
sees Indian as the source of dairy production growth and looking for leaders withe equity.
and in trade news this morning
New Zealand could walk away from a trans-Pacific free-trade deal if the US and Japan try to shut out Kiwi dairy exports, Trade Minister Tim Groser says.
Asked if anything being discussed could be a "deal breaker" for New Zealand, Groser said "absolutely". "We can't do a deal that would exclude New Zealand's No 1 exports, which is dairy products - it's 33 or 34 per cent of New Zealand's exports".
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/10668761/TPP-trade-deal-no-sure-thing-Groser
this must be more than a line in the sand.
I don't get the Indain connection,
India now has indisputably the world's biggest dairy industry—at least in terms of milk production; last year India produced close to 100 million tonnes of milk, 15% more than the US and three times as much as the much-heralded new growth champ, China. Appropriately, India also produces the biggest directory or encyclopaedia of any world dairy industry. The dairy sector in the India has shown remarkable development in the past decade and India has now become one of the largest producers of milk and value-added milk products in the world.
India Facts and Figures : India's Export of Dairy products was 1,59,228.52 MT to the world for the worth of Rs. 3,318.53 crores during the year 2013-14. Major Export Destinations (2013-14) : Bangladesh, Egypt Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Yemen Republc and Pakistan.
http://www.slideshare.net/Adrienna/dairy-exports-from-india-2013
Worth a read,
Can India grow dairy powder exports to China in wake of NZ crisis?
By Raynah Coutinho, 19-Aug-2013
According to the chief of India’s biggest dairy exporter, India’s milk product exports could jump my more than one-half this year in light of China’s fractured relationship with New Zealand following the latest Fonterra crisis.
Have a read of this weeks letter from Mauldin, the EM markets are in for a rough ride.
http://d21uq3hx4esec9.cloudfront.net/uploads/pdf/141025_TFTF2.pdf
well of the 10 ideas, where for NZ Inc.
- Adopt big data in US agriculture - boosting grain and oilseed production and resource efficiency
- Close the yield gap in Central and Eastern Europe - consolidating food & agri to upgrade production
- Lift dairy production in India - adding value and improving rural incomes
- Grow aquaculture - realising tilapia potential in Latin America
- Boost production in the food & agri engine room - capitalising on Brazil’s grain and oilseed and animal protein potential
- Raise sugarcane’s productivity - improving consistency of yields and cane quality in Brazil
- Develop cold chains in China - improving meat and seafood availability
- Invest in local storage - reducing post harvest food losses in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Strengthen South-South trade - linking South America’s production potential and Asia’s demand
- Improve China’s food security - taking domestic actions to complement agri imports.
and a vid of the main man
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-21/extended-interview-with-thos-gieskes/5831516
with mixed messages and stories
Government priorities tend to change as much as the weather. I think they should increase prices first, just to see what happens, Oh wait, we tried that with dairy and look what happened, overproduction.
Perhaps we could turn all the super markets into co-ops owned by farmers, that would be a fair outcome for all.
The waste bullshit has been doing the rounds for years, with the price of pet food its hard to imagine. My father in law was involved with the USSR in the good old days and they had huge inefficiencies in the rail network which meant that up to %30 of the food rotted in wagons or got pilfered. I was in eastern Europe after the wall came down and the stores were empty, the people got by and looked healthy, I don't know how, perhaps they grew veges in gardens and scavanged, meat was the hardest to get. Huge collective farms were sitting idle, no spring planting, harvesters left in half way through last years wheat field where they broke down. Systemic failure could be in our future too.
I will believe the world is out of food, when every house has a vegie patch, 1/2 a dozen chickens and a rabbit hutch in the garden.
Agreed, waste is usually 5finger discount.
but why he mentions such during the vid after saying current vol not enough wgo/
If anything there is pressure to lift petfood type into the food chain,
eg. UK horse and the historical Irish trimming of green beef GoodmanLarry-style
an Irish businessman, chiefly involved in the beef industry. His companies attracted controversy in the 1991Beef Tribunal and the 2013 horse meat contamination scandal.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Goodman
but he happy now, see pic
as irish say, he knows how to live...
Waikato recorded 39 farm sales from July to September 2014, equal to the same period last year, but Otorohanga dairy farmer Tony van Grootel said he'd been shocked at the "staggering amount" of dairy farms for sale.
This was a sign of cracks already showing in dairy on the back of Fonterra's grim milk payout forecast of $5.30 for the next season, he said.
"No one really predicted this payout, so all of a sudden someone takes away a quarter of your income, it's hard. A lot of farmers could go under. We've got friends who could possibly go under."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/10665315/All-eyes-on-dair…
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.