There’s more bad news for dairy farmers, with international dairy commodity prices dropping again. The latest Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index saw continued downward trends during event 224 – which concluded with the GDT Price Index down 3.5%. This marks the seventh consecutive fall in index for the milk price indicator.
Key Results:
- AMF index down 9.4%, average price US$4,577/MT;
- Butter index down 9.6%, average price US$3,637/MT;
- BMP not offered;
- Ched index up 0.2%, average price US$3,252/MT;
- LAC index up 1.1%, average price US$920/MT;
- RenCas index down 4.5%, average price US$5,067/MT;
- SMP index down 1.6%, average price US$1,965/MT;
- SWP index not available, average price not available;
- WMP index down 1.8%, average price US$2,599/MT.
While whole milk powder (WMP) prices fell slightly, the drop was driven more by significant falls in anhydrous milkfat (AMF) and butter.
NZX Dairy Data and Insights Anaylst, Amy Castleton, said the 1.8 percent fall in the WMP price index was a surprisingly resilient result.
“WMP offer volumes were at their highest for the season at the November 20 event,” she said.
“In addition, just released New Zealand milk production figures showed October production was up 6.5 percent on a milksolids basis.”
Most of the whole milk powder sold went to North Asia, which includes China.
The price indices for AMF and butter dropped 9.4 percent and 9.6 percent respectively.
Regular grade AMF and unsalted butter for January shipping decreased 9.9 percent and 10.3 percent respectively.
Ahead of the event, the derivatives market had expected lifts for the grades and contracts of each of these products.
“There was significantly less volume of AMF sold compared with the previous event, but there was more butter sold,” said Ms Castleton.
“There hasn’t been such a big percentage change in prices for either AMF and butter since late 2016,” she said.
The skim milk powder (SMP) price index decreased 1.6 percent overall. Medium heat SMP for shipping in January decreased 1.8 percent on the previous event.
