Editorial: Dairy is king!

The quarterly report is a snapshot of the performance of our primary sector that also forecasts the outlook for the coming four years, based on data from a variety of sources.

First up the good news, much touted by the Government, is the performance of the overall sector in the past to the end of June: The sector has earned the country a whopping $56.2 billion – an increase of 6% on 2022 and according to Agriculture Minister, Damien O’Connor, $1.2 billion more than MPI had earlier predicted.

This great outcome is largely the result of the performance of the dairy industry which earned $25.1 billion – double that of the meat and wool sector. Further good news is that, all things being equal, the dairy industry will keep up the good work over the next four years and by 2027, export revenue from the sector will hit $28.2 billion.

But in a world where things change rapidly, where the words volatility and uncertainty are commonly used, there is no guarantee things will go as MPI suggests.

On the home front, dairy farmers face a tidal wave of challenges with high interest costs, inflation, on-farm costs, a messy situation with regulations which has now become politicised and then there a still something of a problem with accessing labour.

So, it’s far from a perfect world.