Farmers buoyant despite potential dairy drop

Photo / Christine Cornege

The mood among farmers at this year's annual national Fieldays was buoyant, despite the prospect of a drop in the dairy payout in the coming year, event organisers said.

While dairy farmers are looking at a farmgate milk price to $7.00 a kg/milk solids, down from a record $8.40 in 2013/14, it will still be the fourth best season for prices if the forecast comes to pass.

And beef and lamb farmers at Fieldays were more chipper, thanks to an upswing in prices for their commodities.

"We are out of the shadows of a recession now," Fieldays chief executive Jon Calder said. "The (dairy) payout is still good and beef and lamb prices are holding up, so it's time for farmers to catch up with some of that spending that has been deferred for the last couple of years," Calder told APNZ.

Some exhibitors commented that they have seen higher sale results on last year already and Calder said.

"We have had extremely positive feedback from some of our larger exhibitors saying that they have had incredibly strong sales and enquires in the first two days of Fieldays," he said.

ANZ Bank rural economist Con Williams, who attended the event at Mystery Creek, said the mood of Fieldays seemed positive, despite the dampening effect bad weather initially had on attendance.

Williams said that going on latest market trends dairy farmers could be facing a $6.50 per kg milk price for 2014/15, but that farmers still had good reason to remain optimistic.

"There was a bit of discussion in terms of the way forward - what farms in the future are going to look like - with all this innovation that you see around," he said.

Williams said farmers were also thinking about what would be required of them in terms of regulatory compliance with environmental standards, and the likely profit drivers of the future.

"I picked up a very optimistic vibe," he said. "Sheep and beef, even though those farmers face lots of challenges, is turning a bit of corner," he said.

Fieldays attracts interest from offshore. This year 37 foreign trade delegations turned up, and there were 54 international exhibitors.

Calder said the event this year had attracted a higher level of technology and sophistication, particularly around software development and data collection. Fieldays attracted more than 900 exhibitors - a record.