Dairy Analytics

Forecasting the 2023/24 Fonterra Milk Price

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An infrequent mailing list with commentary on notable changes in our forecast.

Our current forecast

We think there is a 4-in-5 chance that the milk price will end up between

$/90 and $/10

but if you tried to pin us down, our best guess is

$/50

Help! What do the grey slash things mean?

When we give a forecast like $6.00/90, the grey number after the slash is the probability that the final Fonterra farmgate milk price will be greater than the blue dollar figure.

How our forecast has changed over time

The dark, solid line is our best guess. There is a 4-in-5 chance that the final milk price will end up in the shaded band.

GlobalDairyTrade Results

We use auction results from GlobalDairyTrade to help forecast the milk price.

The prices below are not identical to those published by GlobalDairyTrade; in auctions where the product was not sold, or the price was not published, we have imputed a value.

The chart below presents a 12 month rolling average of volume of product sold across the five categories we measure, as well as an unsmoothed trace of the quantity of all products sold. We don't find that the sales quantity has a predictive impact on the final price, but it is useful to demonstrate the strong seasonality in the market.

Foreign exchange rate

We use the hedged and spot USD:NZD FX rates claimed by Fonterra on a quarterly basis, along with the daily USD:NZD exchange rate published by the RBNZ. There is a three-month lag between the daily rate and Fonterra's spot price because of the delay between when milk is produced and when it is sold.

Historical Fonterra forecasts

The historical Fonterra farmgate milk price forecasts since 2009.

How did we do in the past?

The charts were our forecasts in previous seasons. The red horizontal line (if present) is the final end-of-season Fonterra milk price. We did not provide forecasts for the 2017/18 season.

Having trouble or got some suggestions? Send an email to o.dowson@gmail.com.

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