New Zealand dairy farmers are struggling to keep production ahead of last year's record milkflows, even though summer rains have rescued many regions from the drought that loomed before Christmas, a commodities report says.
"The impact of cows culled, lost production and cows dried-off early will ... result in
production struggling to stay ahead of last year through the rest of the season," Rabobank economists said in their agribusiness report.
The rains which arrived over Christmas and New Year enabled North Island dairy farmers to avoid what would have been an early and severe drought, Rabobank said.
Nationally, milkflows last season rose to 16.5 billion litres, containing 1.44 billion kg of milksolids, a 3.3 per cent lift compared with 1.39 billion kg processed in the previous season.
Rabobank said improvements in commodity prices in New Zealand dollar terms had strengthened local prices by 4 to 9 per cent this season, with the exception of cheese, which remained flat.
