Pasture growth rates have responded well in those NI areas that have received rain and the West Coast and Southern NZ are also growing good grass.
In all other unirrigated areas, heavy supplementation, culling and OAD milking are techniques managers are using to squeeze the milk flow into the autumn.
Some dairy farmers in the Waikato are having to deal with the third dry summer in a row, and are weary after more supplementary feeding, and advisers suggest they should switch to the new seasons preparation, and at all costs maintain BCS, as it’s now only 120 days to calving.
As the Opuha dam stops supplying irrigation water, more plans are being revealed to store unutilized water from the Rangitata diversion scheme, into ponds on the north side of this alpine river.
Farmers are busy cultivating and sowing into the dry soils ready for any autumn rains, and palm kernel extract demand has increased rapidly as managers look for solutions to fill the feed supply gaps, created by the dry conditions.
The figures are now starting to emerge of the downward fall in production, with Oceania Dairy reporting a 9% drop for February, and Fonterra closing the Studholme plant for maintenance, and processing their milk at other bigger plants, as they adjust their national milk flow forecast to 3.3% down on last year.
Fonterra maintained the $4.70 payout forecast in their latest update, as demand out of China remains weak, but lower global supply is still predicted to stimulate prices next year.
The dairy auction overnight rose again this time by a modest 1.1%, on the back of Fonterra announcing it is going to increase the volumes of product offered at auction.
Whole milk powder eased slightly from last auctions big lift, but skim milk amd butter milk powders firmed strongly to help maintain the recent price impetus.
Dairy Companies have announced they are investing $5million into developing better predator control technologies, as they look to prevent feral pests contaminating farmed animals with tuberculosis.
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22 Comments
Total quantities sold for all products within the March auction were 44.8% below last year’s average volumes sold for the month of March and 22.3% below the previous three year average March quantities sold.
https://secure.attenbabler.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/GDT…
New Zealand's constant drive to produce more export milk could be self-defeating, dairy farm syndicate manager Andrew Watters says.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/66965775/drive-to-export-milk-questioned
there goes the business model
I would expect Fonterra to have to pass on recent increase in costs to the customers. The new tighter ACC rulings are going to take some constant cash flows to maintain, that has to come from customers, so Fonterra is going to have to ensure those costs are passed on
not wrong and alerted to by some along the way
https://keithwoodford.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/fonterra-and-the-two-company-model/#more-1220 - last of 5.
It is now a little more than 13 years since Fonterra was formed. In that time, all of the foundation directors have moved on. There have also been three Chief Executive officers (CEOs) and at least four Chief Financial Officers. None of the current top level management team that reports to the CEO were there at the start.
Witness as the worlds greatest co-operative is destroyed. This is without doubt the greatest company in NZ, there is nothing even close. I don't understand this attitude of "if it's not broken, break it'.
All people can do is look at it through an idealogical lense, and pick at nits. Only if you ignore the progress that has been made since inception can you think splitting is a good idea.
skudiv - The question is who will really benefit from a broken Fonterra? It certainly won't be the NZ dairy farmers.
I spoke recently to an ex Fonterra farmer who is now supplying one of the corporates. Even they were concerned at what appears to be happening with Fonterra and the possibility of seeing a change in it's structure. Their comment was 'we need a strong Fonterra otherwise the corporates will just screw us on milk price'. While comfortable with their decision to leave Fonterra, they acknowledge that they only get paid what they do, because Fonterra is there to set a benchmark. (Their payment is based on Fonterra milk price minus x cents)
Probably the same people the benefitted from the asset sales, underwriters, exchange operators/brokers and traders. Fonterra was formed to give the farmers the best possible price, now people want farmers to get the lowest possible price and the difference to go to the shareholders, which will no longer be the farmers. The red-meat sector would love to have a cooperative like fonterra, well the farmers would at least.
Food for thought.
But despite Ms Kay's and other real estate agents' efforts, very little has come to fruition.
Ms Kay has got 36 properties for sale, some of which have been on the market for close to a decade.
"Do you give in?, she asked.
"Do you give up?
"I don't know why some of it hasn't gone yet, there are Chinese investors out here, but I do know that the Chinese take longer and you must have patient.
Large dairy farm, Van Diemen's Land Company, which has about 26,000 cows run over 25 properties, has been on the verge of doing a deal with Chinese investors for years.
There was speculation in 2013 about a potential deal with the Chinese Investment Corporation, and despite many continued industry rumours, there has been no confirmed news of a deal.
Ms Kay said one reason negotiations have not translated into sales or investment could be a big difference in the way Chinese investors value dairy farms.
"They like to work out roughly between $8000 and $9000 per cow, it's not our $12,000 to $14,000 an acre," she said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-11/chinese-investment-tasmania-dairy-industry-challenges/6085112
When you let the addict own the phramacy you get Chinese "capitalism".
Liquidity evaporates in China as 'fiscal cliff' nears
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11450…
If you live in China for any length of time you notice how it is all a lie. In nearly all sectors the local Party cadres own most of the assets and businesses and also the local banks and hence can lie about the true state of affairs.
It is common that the local Party revolves credit through their little empires, raking off a few per cent every time the money passes through, often through salaries paid to key people but in other ways as well. If you are on the inside of this system you personally get rich if there is a reasonable amount of money flowing.
To make this work, in general, losses are left with the bank and gains are spent. If the bank and the businesses are owned by the same people it is a closed system and the bank can grow the money supply within that system, part of which can then be released to the cadres through various scams.
The impact of higher real interest rates is that more losses are parked up, not that investment or construction is stopped as that is a major source of income, and the banking sector in China is riddled with bad debt.
When you let the addict own the phramacy you get Chinese "capitalism".
Having seen it from the inside I can state that Western concepts of markets and banking and economics are not wholly compatible with what actually happens and the role of the Party and ownership structures has to be taken into consideration.
Are they heading for a fall? (From a Western perspective they would have gone down years ago) The genuine fear in China is of another revolution if the masses start to starve, historically common in China, and something they have to avoid. Breakneck growth has been the solution for decades but can it be continued............? That is the million yuan question.
Production looks good. What would it be like without the dry ?
http://www.attenbabler.com/new-zealand-milk-production-update-mar-15/
Why use an out-of-date foreign link ?
Better to use up-to-date local links such as
I must confess, I'm getting very dry in HB and a little concerned when the next rain is due.
California is having the most fantastic weather, but no rain for months, dams well up above last two years but very little snow.
Also grapes are hard to sell, I see Costco selling Malb Savi Blanc at $4.50 a bottle this afternoon.
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