increase font size
DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle.
Figures released at DairyNZ annual general meeting (AGM) in Ashburton shows the 2015/16 dairy season was the most challenging year yet for dairy farmers.
The 2015/16 milk price of $3.90/kgMS was the lowest in more than a decade and impacted farmers who last season were, on average, operating at a break-even cost of $5.25/kg milksolids.
DairyNZ board chair Michael Spaans says despite an obvious shortfall in farm income, last season farmers made positive steps in reducing their costs of production.
“Our data shows farmers have become more efficient and fine-tuned their farm management – so much so, that in August we revised the average farm’s break-even cost down to $5.05/kg milksolids for 2016/17,” says Spaans, speaking to an audience in Ashburton.
“This is a rare positive from a period of low milk prices and something farmers should be immensely proud of. Farmers’ abilities to sharpen the pencil and remain focused is key to maintaining our industry’s international competitiveness.”
The 2015/16 challenges were compounded by the low milk price in 2014/15. With no significant retrospective payments from the previous season, many farmers in 2015/16 increased debt to cover costs.
The previous 2014/15 season had been somewhat buffered by the $8.40/kgMS price of 2013/14.
Nationally, dairy farmers produced 1.862 billion kgMS, worth $8 billion in 2015/16.
The industry’s milk production benefited the New Zealand economy by $12.2 billion from dairy exports in 2015/16 and provided around 35,000 full-time jobs on-farm and a further 14,500 jobs in milk processing and wholesaling.
DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle says 2015/16 was another busy year for DairyNZ, which makes a range of industry investments through the $67 million levy, plus additional government and commercial funding.
“Investing farmers’ money into a wide range of programmes is designed to deliver direct benefits for farmers and the industry as a whole,” says Mackle.
“While each year we focus on supporting farmers through immediate issues, such as managing the low milk price, we also maintain our long-term work in such areas as research, environmental management and our workforce.”
This coming year, $16m will be invested into each of the three key areas – research; farm profit; biosecurity and product integrity. Environmental work will also receive $12m funding.
OPINION: In the 1980s, concern was expressed in West Germany about the falling birth rate. Some simple analysis was performed by Professor Helmut Sies, physician and biochemist at Dusseldorf University. His letter ‘A new parameter for sex education’ was published in Nature in 1988:
OPINION: Dairy farmers know better than anyone that change is constant.
A four year trial has reaffirmed that mixing plantain into dairy pastures can help reduce nitrogen losses to freshwater while maintaining milk production and profitability, say researchers.
OPINION: Today marks Farm Worker Appreciation Day – a day we’re proud to recognise here in New Zealand.
OPINION: Mike Chapman, former chief executive of levy-funded HortNZ, has thrown out a challenge to farmers and growers to put their levy-funded industry organisations under the same scrutiny as fertiliser, electricity, labour and freight.
Testing confirms H5 bird flu in a single northern giant petrel, found dead on a remote Cape Palliser beach in the Wairarapa, says Dr Mary van Andel, the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI) Chief Veterinary Officer.
"What's for dinner?" may sound like a simple question, but for many Kiwi parents, answering it has become a job in itself.
Fifty Eight years ago, on the 16th of August 1968, August Claas, the founder of the harvesting company and father of Helmut Claas, personally presented a Claas Senator combine harvester to Scottish farmer John Steven.
New Zealand consumers are paying more for beef mince than ever before, with the average retail price now sitting above $24 per kilogram, according to Rabobank.
State farmer Pamu has delivered its strongest operating result on record.
Four years since it was first detected in New Zealand, researchers and growers now know much more about management of maize pest fall armyworm (FAW).
OPINION: After hogging the media limelight for telling a NZ Chinese MP to "go back home", Winston Peters has decided…
OPINION: With fuel prices soaring, one would have expected most farmers to be reclaiming excise duty on petrol.
