Settled, warm and dry weather across May saw Fonterra’s milk collection climb 7.7% to 75.3m kg MS, particularly in the North Island where its milk production climbed 28.6% to 38.6m kg MS. The full season collection for the island was 908.3m kg MS, 3.9% ahead of last season.
Fonterra’s South Island milk collections for May was 8% down for the month compared to last season, collecting 36.7m kg MS.
Collections for South Island began to drop off more quickly during the second half of May than in recent seasons.
The heavy rain in the last weekend of the month caused flooding in some areas, with disruption to collections as a result. Its full season collection was 630.9 million kg MS, behind 1.8% on last season.
Total New Zealand dairy exports increased by 19.8%, or 52,355 tonnes, in May compared to the same period last year.
The increase was driven by stronger volumes of whole milk powder (WMP), up 22%, and fluid milk products, up 55%, primarily to China.
There were also increases in cheese to China and the Middle East, up 27%, and higher exports of casein to the US, China and the EU, up 185%.
Exports for the 12 months to May were up by 3.6%, or 123,890t, on the previous comparable period. This was primarily driven by WMP, fluid milk products and cheese but partially offset by declines in skim milk powder (SMP) and anhydrous milk fat (AMF).
