Biosecurity tops priorities for agribusiness leaders - report
Biosecurity remains the top priority for agribusiness leaders, according to KPMG’s 2025 Agribusiness Agenda released last week.
No significant rise in dairy prices next year.
That's the prediction of Ian Proudfoot, KPMG's global head of agribusiness. He told Rural News he sees himself as a realist and says at the moment there is no indication that milk supply from any region will reduce dramatically in the next year.
As a consequence we can expect the supply position to continue and he doesn't see prices recovering significantly, although he believes they will go up.
"The event which would cause any rebalancing upwards quickly would be a drought or a biosecurity event in one of the major dairy production regions around the world. You'd have to say we haven't had an event of any magnitude for a couple of years," he says.
"Agriculture is cyclical and an event will happen at some point but whether it happens this year, the year after or the year after that we don't know."
Proudfoot believes farmers in the US are not experiencing the same economic pain as farmers in New Zealand and Europe because the price of corn – the main feed for dairy cows in the US – is low.
He adds that there are downsides to European farmers being encouraged to reduce production to help them deal with the crisis.
"While it's costing them money to produce, it would be more expensive not to produce given that they have invested a lot of money in new processing equipment," Proudfoot explains. "Therefore they need the volume to cover the marginal costs of operating that plant so it makes sense to carry on producing milk, which of course has price implications."
He says the fundamentals of the future of dairying haven't changed and long term forecasts suggest that demand will steadily rise. But Proudfoot says there will need to be a rebalancing of the market and it's important for the NZ dairy industry to focus on lowering production costs and increasing the volume of value add consumer products.
"The more we can do to break that link to commodities and the cyclical nature of commodity prices, and the more we can put into consumer products, the better. We all know the price of dairy products at supermarkets hasn't really come down, therefore the more you have in consumer products the better the protection."
In the next year, Proudfoot is predicting the farmgate milk price will reach the mid $4 mark, which he says will mean more farmers will be able to break even or not suffer the losses they are currently experiencing.
He says while the present crisis is painful, long term the sector will benefit as farmers focus on running their businesses more profitability.
Newly elected Federated Farmers meat and wool group chair Richard Dawkins says he will continue the great work done his predecessor Toby Williams.
Hosted by ginger dynamo Te Radar, the Fieldays Innovation Award Winners Event put the spotlight on the agricultural industry's most promising ideas.
According to DairyNZ's latest Econ Tracker update, there has been a rise in the forecast breakeven milk price for the 2025/26 season.
Despite the rain and a liberal coating of mud, engines roared, and the 50th Fieldays Tractor Pull Competition drew crowds of spectators across the four days of the annual event.
Nationwide rural wellbeing programme, Farmstrong recently celebrated its tenth birthday at Fieldays with an event attended by ambassador Sam Whitelock, Farmers Mutual Group (FMG), Farmstrong partners, and government Ministers.
Six industry organisations, including DairyNZ and the Dairy Companies Association (DCANZ) have signed an agreement with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to prepare the country for a potential foot and mouth outbreak.
OPINION: ACT MP Mark Cameron isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but he certainly calls it how he sees it, holding…
OPINION: Did former PM Jacinda Ardern get fawning reviews for her book?