Oceania Dairy Market Overview

MADISON - Dec 22/05 - SNS -- The USDA published its latest review of dairy market conditions in Australia and New Zealand today.

OCEANIA OVERVIEW:  Milk production continues to decline in the Oceania
region.  New Zealand producers and handlers continue to indicate that
their output is trailing last year by about 2%.  This is on top of
last year's deficit of between 3 - 4%.  Because the calendar year milk
production season is not yet half over, producers and handlers are
hopeful that the second half of the year will generate some additional
milk volumes to makeup for first half shortages.  At this point,
weather conditions have not been favorable for this type of recovery,
but producers remain optimistic.  In Australia, milk production for
the first 4 months of the year (July - October), is running 0.8% ahead
of last year for the comparable period.  This trend is basically on
track with what handlers and producers were projecting.  Early season
projections were for a 1% increase over last year.  Victoria and New
South Wales, the 2 leading milk production areas of Australia, are
running 1.2% ahead of last season.  Queensland is 1.1% ahead of last
year on a cumulative basis while South Australia is trailing by 4.5%.
 Supplies of manufactured dairy products are available to regular and
going customers, but suppliers and traders state that stocks are
fairly tight.  Prices for current supplies are holding basically
steady.  No new buyer interest is being reported from the region.
This limited sales activity is attributed to minimal, if any, supplies
for spot or additional new buyer interest.  Traders feel that they
will be out of the spot market for much of the year, until milk
production recovers sufficiently or supplies surpass need.

0930c steve Schneeberger  (608)224-5084

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STAT News Service