More grass, more milk

The co-operative collected 136.5 million kgMS, 2.3% higher than the same month last season.

It says February saw a generally settled end to summer across the country, but with some bouts of wet and windy weather.

"Other than the far north of the North Island and Fiordland in the South Island, the whole country was sunnier than average for the time of the year.

"In regions that had rainfall with that warm weather, good pasture growth resulted."

North Island milk collection for the month reached 73.9 million kgMS, 5.9% higher than February last season. Northland experienced well above average rainfall, going some way to alleviating the very dry conditions that region had been experienced throughout summer.

South Island milk collection was 62.6 million kgMS, 1.7% behind February last season.

It says higher than average temperatures with favourable growing conditions across much of the South Island led to better than average conditions.

"While these were down on February last season, South Island collections in February 2020 were among the strongest in recent seasons."

However, in Australia the co-op's milk collection continues to dip.

It collected 7.2 million kgMS, a 5.8% decrease on February last season.

"Lower herd numbers combined with increased consumption of lower quality home-grown fodder instead of supplementary feed are continuing to impact milk production growth across Australia."

Fonterra's season-to-date collections in Australia are down 1.8% on last year.