Why Rabobank is sticking with $5.95 milk price forecast

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Rabobank's Michael Harvey is sticking to his $5.95 farmgate milk price forecast for 2020/21, no matter what Jamie Mackay says.

The Country host tried valiantly to persuade Rabobank's Australian-based senior dairy analyst to up his forecast to start with a six - but Harvey remained cautious - although he knew that wasn't what Kiwi farmers wanted to hear.

"I'm sure New Zealand dairy farmers would want it to have a six in it".

There were a range of views on where the milk price should be and Rabobank was "obviously at the bearish end of the spectrum", but ultimately time would tell, Harvey said.

"The next three-to-six months are going to be critical in terms of the product's volume that sold for New Zealand. We're still cautious about the underlying fundamentals".

Although pricing in the global market had been on "a bit of a rollercoaster" since Rabobank released its $5.60 milk price in April, it hadn't fallen as far as first thought, Harvey said.

Listen below:

"A lot of that's come down to government intervention. There's been some big purchasing programmes in the US, there's been some storage programmes in Europe - that's all provided some short-term relief to the market - but in some point in time that's going to ease back".

The "underlying fundamentals" Harvey mentioned were supply, which was growing around the world, coupled with a continuing weak demand.

"That's why we're still cautious. There's still a lot of uncertainty about what the recovery looks like which is why there's a range of [milk price] views out there".

"Hopefully we're wrong - we'd love to see the market improve and be in a healthier state than we're expecting - but that's just our view at the moment".

Also in today's interview: Harvey took a brief look at the latest GDT result and talked about how he thought the global recession would play out.