Global milk price rebound positive but early days

Global milk price rebound positive but early days

It may be a case of eighth trading event lucky, but the small uplift in today’s GlobalDairyTrade auction result will not have farmers breaking open the silver top just yet.

“Things remain volatile and it would not surprise me if we see trading events oscillate around until the end of this year,” says Andrew Hoggard, Federated Farmers Dairy chair.

“It is positive to finally see a plus sign beside GDT as it has been a long time between drinks since we last saw that on 17 June.

“We’re pleased to see strong numbers for whole milk powder, butter, anhydrous milk fat and even sweet whey powder.

“Even with GDT heading south we’ve consistently seen a good number of bidders and volume going through it. It is good to finally see those factors come together with prices. Even if it’s by a smidgen overall.

“Seasonality may be a factor that could be playing our way and I know there is a lot of anxiety coming out of California due to drought there. We’re not out of the woods on that score ourselves given El Nino risk still exists.

“Why that’s the case given the volume of rain we get I don’t know. Then again, a goldmine is just dirt and rock unless you mine it, or in our case, store rain water.

“Another factor in GDT is that we are working through huge quantities of European milk displaced due to the Eastern Ukraine crisis. An uplift in one auction in spite of this is good, but a trend it does not make.

“Given my phone rings off the hook when prices go down, things on the media front have been remarkably quiet when they don’t,” Mr Hoggard concluded.

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