Tuesday, 13 October 2015 12:00

Fonterra predicts price rise

Written by 
The GDT whole milk powder index lifted 12.9% overnight. The GDT whole milk powder index lifted 12.9% overnight.

Global Dairy Trade prices are coming back relatively quickly and Fonterra expects whole milk powder prices to keep climbing over the next six months, says Fonterra chairman John Wilson.

The overall index rose by a further 9.9% at the GDT auction last week.

The GDT whole milk powder index lifted 12.9% overnight, with an average price US$2824/MT. The skim milk powder index rose 13.4% with the average skim milk price at US$2267/MT.

"It is good to see prices moving up," Wilson told Dairy News. "We have known right through that the current global prices are unsustainably low.

"They are the result of a unique situation where we had far too much supply in 2014 because of good weather and really high prices globally, so dairy farmers produced more milk. We had the impact of Russia and China -- the two big demand markets of the world -- with Russia closing its market effectively, particularly to European products, and China changing its in buying profile.

"You had this reaction where global dairy prices dropped to unsustainably low levels. We are now seeing that market slowly come back into balance and we believe it will do so over the next six months or so.

"Pleasingly we are seeing it come up relatively quickly and we would expect whole milk powder prices to continue to climb to that US$3000-$3500/MT level over the next six months, maybe earlier. It will depend on where milk production comes from and how much milk is produced globally over the next six months."

More like this

Editorial: Happy days

OPINION: The year has started positively for New Zealand dairy farmers and things are likely to get better.

Featured

Nedap launches standalone operation in New Zealand

With collars on more than seven million cows worldwide, Nedap says its standalone launch into New Zealand represents world-leading, reliable and proven smart technology solutions for dairy farmers.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

No show

OPINION: There will be no cows at Europe's largest agricultural show in Paris this year for the first time ever…

More cows, less barley

OPINION: Canterbury grows most of the country's wheat, barley and oat crops. But persistently low wheat prices, coupled with a…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter