Prices of dairy products sold on Fonterra Cooperative Group’s GlobalDairyTrade platform fell for the third time in four sales with declines for all six product types on offer.
The GDT-TWI Price Index fell 0.9 percent from the last sale a fortnight ago. The average winning price across all products dropped to US$3,666 per metric tonne.
The price of whole milk powder fell 0.9 percent to US$3,533. Whole milk powder typically accounts for more than half the product sold on the platform.
A total of 28,011 metric tonnes of product was sold, down from 31,026 tonnes in the previous auction.
Skim milk powder fell 0.5 percent to US$3,296 a metric tonne. Anhydrous milk fat dropped 3.5 percent to US$3,942 a tonne and cheddar declined 1.1 percent to US$3,640 a tonne.
Milk protein concentrate fell 4.9 percent to US$5,569 a tonne and rennet casein dropped 4.3 percent to US$7,715 a tonne.
There were 118 winning bidders from a total 155 participants across 12 rounds at the latest sale. The number of qualified bidders increased to 558 from 533 at the last sale two weeks ago.
(BusinessDesk)
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2011 MILK PRODUCTION ENDS ON A HIGH NOTE: (by J. Kaczor)
In this month’s estimate of December milk production, USDA reached back and made some adjustments to their estimates on number of milk cows for November and to production per cow for October and November, resulting in more milk being reported for those months.
For December 80,000 more cows were on hand than a year before, production per cow rose by a strong 29 lbs for the month, and milk production rose by 409 million lbs, an increase of 2.5%. The tonnage and the percentage increase were the highest reported for the year. Western and southwestern states continued to be among those with the biggest increases although Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia had increases at or above 2.6%. Production gains in New Mexico and Texas were lower than they have been.
California again was reported to have the biggest increase, 129 million lbs more than last December, from 30,000 more cows, with average monthly production up by 40 lbs. 2011 began with a strong increase in milk production, weakened mid-year, then turned sharply upward over the last quarter of the year.
According to USDA’s report this week, the total increase in U.S. milk production for 2011 was 1.8% above the previous year. The average number of milk cows for the year, including dry cows, increased by 80,000, and the average amount of milk per cow during the year increased by a little less than a half pint per day.
What is going on here? How dare the U.S. dairy industry screw with something so important to so many other international dairy product exporting nations? It would have been so much better for those others had the number of U.S. milk cows stayed at 9,208,000, the average for the June-August period, but instead, producers went right ahead and added 13,000 more over the next four months.
The effrontery of that, some say, is beyond belief.
Well folks, that was U.S. dairy farmers doing what they do better than any of their peers do anywhere else in the world – produce milk efficiently and proficiently.
New Zealand producers did not have to recover from a reduction in cow numbers. They added 37,000 cows in 2008, 397,000 in 2009, 83,000 in 2010, and 140,000 in 2011. FAS is projecting another 100,000 cows will be added to New Zealand herds this year. Over the same period, the U.S. milking herd for 2012 is projected to be smaller than it was in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011 – but should still manage to set a new record high this year. The table reflects what appears to be a “race for share of the future international market” between New Zealand and everyone else. http://www.milkproducerscouncil.org/updates/012712.pdf
Well folks, that was U.S. dairy farmers doing what they do better than any of their peers do anywhere else in the world – produce milk efficiently and proficiently.
Youwot??? We've always been told that that's us. So what is our "competitive advantage" in dairying then?
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