Latest / Talking Dairy / In 10: One for the books – Campbell Parker on the State of the Dairy Nation Pulse Report

Transcript

In 10: One for the books – Campbell Parker on the State of the Dairy Nation Pulse Report · Talking Dairy

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Kiora and welcome to Talking Dairy.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host Jack McGowan from DairyNZ.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to have you with us.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: In this episode, we're taking a look at the recently released State of the Dairy Nation Pulse report, which is a snapshot into how dairy is performing across Ao Teroa.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: The most recent season, 2024-25, saw dairy make a record contribution to the New Zealand economy.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Farmers produced the highest ever volume of milk, and they did it from fewer cows.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Export earnings were the strongest we've seen, and the sector continues to employ more than 55,000 people nationwide.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a standout story of productivity, innovation, and people.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, Campbell.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to see you again.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Morning, Jack.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Very good, thank you.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now where are you joining us from today?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually in Wellington today.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh a bit cold and uh and wintery down here today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was cold up here too.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Very strange start to um autumn, sudden.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Very much so, yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh very cold walking to the office early this morning.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so Campbell, why have you called this a pulse report?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the main reason, Jack, is that it takes a pulse of a number of existing reports that are available and takes a look at the sector at a moment in time.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So a highly successful 2024-25 season, and it draws on those insights from other published industry reports.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Campbell.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So where have you sourced this information from?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are those reports you mentioned?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the primary source of the data comes from the New Zealand Dairy Statistics Report, which is 2024-25, and that was published back in November uh last year, and that's published by DairyNZ and LIC.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: We've also augmented that with the key economic insights from both the MPI's Situation and Primary Industries Outlook report, which was December 2025, and we've pulled through some insights from previous substantial reports that Sense partners did back in September 2023, which we're also commissioning some work mid part of this year for some updated economic data on spending in the sector as well.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Campbell.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Why did you need to bring in data from 2023?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, it was the most robust economic data set that we had available at that time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to our economics team about that before we published the report.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we want to get the pulse report out there because it's something we haven't done before, pulling together those various sources and trying to tell the story of the importance of the New Zealand dairy sector to the economy.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you had to sum it up, what is the biggest takeaway from this pulse report?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the most recent season, so being that 2024-25 season, has been a record contribution to the economy.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Also, the sector produced the highest ever volume of milk and did so from fewer cows while also delivering export earnings, record export earnings, and employing more than 55,000 people across the sector.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that record milk production per cow, I think, reflects a huge amount of work for decades of farmers around improvements in genetic gain and sustained focus on, you know, rearing and producing high-producing cows, improving the milk quality from both farmers themselves, but also the work that are done by others like DairyNZ and the processes in supporting farmers.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what are some of the key stats out of the report?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Milk solids production uh rose by 2.9% to 1.94 billion kilos of milk solids.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a big number.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The lift largely came from increased productivity, a record productivity, with average production per cow at 414 kilograms of milk solids and per hectare production uh also returning to record levels as well.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Noting that we did have a pretty good season over that production season as well.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Dairy companies processed 21 billion litres of milk and stronger solids in that milk.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the average cooperative payout climbed to$10.75 in that season, which was well above the previous season and the five-year adjusted average.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And exports hit a record$27 billion, up nearly 17% on the previous year, while New Zealand produced 2.5% of the world's milk.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: We turned that into more than 1,500 products, and 87% of what we produce is exported around the world.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So and the other one is on the employment stats: 55,000 people paying about$3.6 billion in wages and remains a major driver of uh regional economics, contributing more than 14% of GDP in places like the West Coast and nearly 10% in places like the Waikato.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And looking beyond the numbers, what do these results mean for New Zealand?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think the findings reinforce the importance of the dairy sector to New Zealand and that farmers in the sector as a whole should be proud of their contributions.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Dairy once again stood out as the economic backbone for regions and the country as a whole, and setting records for production and overseas earnings while also sustaining tens of thousands of well-remunerated jobs in our communities.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And those record contributions reflect the long-term efforts of farmers supported by industry and constructive government policies to drive productivity, resilience, and sustainability in the sector, whilst doing all of that and balancing the fundamentals of balancing up the environment and still doing, you know, a good job in all of the sustainability practices as well, which are incredibly important given we export, you know, 95% of what we produce.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a really strong 2024-25 season.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: How is the current season shaping up so far?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, in the current 25-26 seasoning, um, we did have that period of weakening commodity prices that were forecast to decrease a little bit, but we have seen that bounce back in the early part of 2026.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: We've had four GDT rises and an 18% lift in the uh GDT auctions, particularly in whole milk powder since the start of the year.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: On the production side, production's still going pretty well to the end of January.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Production across the country was up 5%.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So export sales particularly strong in both volume and pricing in the first three months of the season.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so look uh welcomed increase in Fonterra in the last month of lifting you know midpoint milk price back to you know the range, uh tightening up and lifting that by 50 cents as well.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So on for another record, yeah.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Another record, yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Before we wrap up, any final comments you'd like to make?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: My final comment would be a massive call out to the New Zealand dairy farmers across A Tara for the Mahi they do every day.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is a report that everyone should be really proud of, and it's a sector that's in very good heart.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for everything you do behind the farm gate every day.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's it for this episode of Talking Dairy, and thank you so much for joining us, Campbell.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: The 2024-25 season, as you said, has reinforced dairy's importance to New Zealand, and it's something that dairy farmers and the dairy sector as a whole can be really proud of.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Dairy once again stood out as the economic backbone, not just for the regions, but for the New Zealand economy.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the sector delivered record production and export earnings while sustaining tens of thousands of meaningful and well-remunerated jobs.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: The record contribution reflects the long-term efforts of farmers supported by industry good organizations and constructive government policies to drive productivity, resilience, and sustainability in the sector.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: And these fundamentals give the sector a strong footing for the future.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening and we'll catch you next time.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Matewa If you'd like to get connected with DariNZ's latest advice, research, tools, and resources, whether it's reading, scrolling, listening, or in person, you can visit dairynz.co.nz forward slash get-connected, and don't forget to hit follow to keep up to date with our latest episodes.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: As always, if you have any feedback on this podcast or have some ideas for future topics or guests, please email us at talkingdairy at dairynz.co.nz.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on Talking Dairy.