Thursday, 07 December 2017 08:45

Fonterra milk payout drops by 35c

Written by 
Fonterra chairman John Wilson. Fonterra chairman John Wilson.

Fonterra has dropped its forecast milk payout for this season by 35c to $6.40/kgMS.

Chairman John Wilson says the lower forecast milk price reflects a prudent approach to ongoing volatility in the global dairy market.

The Global Dairy Trade price for whole milk powder is a big influencer of the farmgate milk price and it has declined by almost 10% since 1 August 2017. 

“While the result of the arbitration with Danone has impacted our earnings guidance for the season, it has no influence on our forecast Farmgate Milk Price,” says Wilson.

“What is driving this forecast is that despite demand for dairy remaining strong, particularly in China, other parts of Asia and Latin America, we are seeing strong production out of Europe and continued high levels of EU intervention stockpiles of skim milk powder.

“This downward pressure on global prices is being partly offset by the lower NZ-US dollar exchange rate,” says Wilson.

The drop will not affect the advance rate paid to farmers for milk.

“Our strong financial position, customer order book at this point in the year, and confidence in demand means that the Board is able to increase the payments made in January by 10 cents per kgMS and will hold the Advance Rate through to the payments in May,” says Wilson.

“In effect, our farmers will receive equal or higher payments for their milk over this period than were scheduled under the previous $6.75 milk price.

Fonterra has also updated its full season New Zealand milk collection forecast due to ongoing challenging weather conditions. The cooperative has reduced its forecast by 1% to 1,525 million kgMS – the same volume as last season. 

More like this

Aussie farmers get A$8.60/kgMS as opening milk price

Australian dairy farmers supplying Fonterra are getting an opening weighted average milk price of A$8.60/kgMS for the new season or around NZ$9.26/kgMS -  NZ74c less than New Zealand suppliers, based on the current exchange rate.

Featured

LIC Space folds for good

Farmer co-operative LIC has closed its satellite-backed pasture measurement platform – Space.

Editorial: Time for common sense

OPINION: The case of four Canterbury high country stations facing costly and complex consent hearing processes highlights the dilemma facing the farming sector as the country transitions into a replacement for the Resource Management Act (RMA).

National

DairyNZ Farmers Forum underway

Over 300 farmers and rural professionals have gathered in Hamilton for the first DairyNZ Farmers Forum for this year.

Machinery & Products

Shearing legend hooked on CanAm

Sir David Fagan, world-renowned competitive sheep shearer with 642 shearing titles worldwide and a knighthood to his name, now runs…

50 years of tractor pull

This year, the Fieldays Tractor Pull, in association with PTS Logistics, mark a major milestone – 50 years of crowd-thrilling…

The Wrangler's birthday bash

It's the Wrangler Limited’s 30th birthday and to celebrate the milestone a prototype of the E Series Wrangler - a…

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Free speech

OPINION: The Free Speech Union is taking this one too far.

Drug survey

OPINION: New national data from The Drug Detection Agency (TDDA), a leading workplace drug tester, shows methamphetamine (meth) use is…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter