16 NOVEMBER 2015

Next Global Dairy Trade Likely to Be a Big Fall – Peters

A third consecutive fall in GlobalDairyTrade (GDT) is likely early Wednesday morning, raising fears that this season is taking a bad turn for the worse.

“Dairy futures are indicating a dairy price fall upwards of 10 per cent,” says New Zealand First Leader and Member of Parliament for Northland Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“Our competitors are in a purple patch and at the end of September, the United States was sitting on over 105,000 tonnes of dry milk products. While that’s down 9.5% on last year, it is still up 9% on 2013/14 – the last good payout season.

“The price spurt at the beginning of this season seems to have been buyers taking advantage of low prices to rebuild stocks ahead of El Nino. Given the back half of the season is usually unkind pricewise, it is of major concern to rural New Zealand.

“We are looking at an El Nino hard landing, if not recession, but that could be blunted by government-led infrastructure building. Take the 31,000 kilometres of unsealed roads in provincial New Zealand and the two-lane bridges this government promised.

“If farmers wanted confirmation of what National truly thinks of them, Environment Minister Nick Smith empowering cycleways under the RMA and $333m to build them provides it.

“Kiwi farmers also need to know that Mr Key’s ham-fisted treatment of Russia has cost them about $60m in lost sales this year. It is all there in the latest Dairy Exporter magazine and Russia is also forecast to fall 40% short of beef too.

“This is a real market being avoided by Mr Key as he uses ‘maybe’ and ‘could be’ in relation to deals like the TPPA and Korea FTA. Deals which have also sold our dairy industry well and truly down the river,” says Mr Peters.

ENDS

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