$10/kgMS milk price tipped for strong 2025/26 season start
The 2025-26 season is set to start on a high and a $10/kgMS opening forecast milk price isn't being ruled out.
Lamb prices look set to bottom out just below $7/kg as the end of the season nears, according to ASB senior rural economist Nathan Penny.
Prices have fallen more than they normally do at this time of year but, given the record highs reached in the spring, prices are bottoming out at a healthy level, Penny notes in ASB Commodities Weekly report.
Looking ahead, ASB expects prices to peak in spring 2019 in the high $7/kg range.
“The underlying tight supply conditions that boosted last year’s prices look set to continue though weather and therefore feed availability remain swing factors as they normally are,” he says.
“If last year’s peak prices took out the gold medal, it follows that this spring may be in line for silver.”
Demand remains strong in the US and firm in China, but traditional markets like the UK and EU continue to lose importance.
“We will be keeping an eye on how Chinese demand holds up amid hints of a slowdown, with Beijing recently dropping its GDP growth target to 30-year low. But all up, we expect a second-successive season of healthy lamb returns.”
HortNZ's CEO, Kate Scott says they are starting to see the substantial cumulative effects on their members of the two disastrous flood events in the Nelson Tasman region.
In an ever-changing world, things never stay completely the same. Tropical jungles can turn into concrete ones criss-crossed by motorways, or shining cities collapse into ghost towns.
Labour's agriculture spokesperson Jo Luxton says while New Zealand needs more housing, sacrificing our best farmland to get there is not the answer.
Profitability issues facing arable farmers are the same across the world, says New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy Hamish Marr.
Over 85% of Fonterra farmer suppliers will be eligible for customer funding up to $1,500 for solutions designed to drive on-farm efficiency gains and reduce emissions intensity.
Tighter beef and lamb production globally have worked to the advantage of NZ, according to the Meat Industry Association (MIA).