Livestock report: Dairy market on a high

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The Country's Jamie Mackay is joined by PGG Wrightson's National Dairy Sales Manager, Jamie Cunninghame, to talk about the dairy industry.

Mackay mentioned ANZ's World Commodity Price Index, which reported a 6.1 per cent rise.

It was the Index's highest point since it began in 1986 and was driven by dairy prices, Mackay said.

Cunninghame, who was visiting Gore and catching up on the dairy market, said it was very positive to see the dairy trade on the rise.

Moving Day was coming up, which was a busy time for the market, Mackay said.

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Cunninghame said had seen great dairy herd sales in recent weeks, and that the market had been buoyant in the past six weeks.

If this trend continued there could be a potential dairy herd shortage in the market, Cunninghame said.

Some quality dairy herds were fetching up to $16-$18,000 in the North Island and a bit higher in the South Island.

Mackay recalled when top dairy cows were selling for $2,500.

Mackay asked about the process of selling and buying herds.

Cunninghame explained that herds were sold via forward contracts which were settled through May and June, and then there were on farm clearing sales which started now until early June.