Dairy markets have continued improving into the New Year confirming the positive trend that ran throughout December 2018, with ICMSA’s Gerald Quain indicating that his organisation expects the significant upward tick to result in a rise in farmer milk price.
ICMSA has been critical of the processors who cut the November milk price in defiance of what the farm organisation said were “a raft of positive market developments and a PPI that did not justify a price cut”.
Dairy Committee Chairperson Mr. Quain was adamant that the last two GDTs signalled a positive turn and he noted that Dutch dairy quotations have continued to move upwards with powders performing well on the back of what he described as “an extraordinary” demand for SMP from EU Intervention stocks.
“The strong sales out of intervention are, we think, very significant for dairy markets as we set off into 2019. The stock overhang of SMP has been massively reduced with over 270,000 tonnes sold out of intervention in 2018,” he said.
“Looking at markets in detail, the 2.8% increase in the most recent GDT auction was achieved by increases in all products sold with butter up 3.9%, SMP increasing 7.9% and WMP achieving 1.2% gains. These improvements in the GDT occurred after falls over the course of 2018 but, more importantly, they came at a time where New Zealand has increased milk supply over their production season”.
