The latest event held by the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) – event 209 – saw another slight decrease of 0.6% for the overall index.
Runnning for a total of two hours and 17 minutes, today’s auction saw 123 winning bidders across 16 rounds from a total of 169 participating bidders.
An overall figure of 17,222MT was sold on the day.
- AMF index down 7.0%, average price US$5,806/MT;
- Butter index up 4.1%, average price US$5,494/MT;
- BMP index up 1.0%, average price US$1,988/MT;
- Ched index up 2.2%, average price US$3,679/MT;
- LAC index up 1.1%, average price US$549/MT;
- RenCas index up 12.1%, average price US$5,668/MT;
- SMP index down 1.8%, average price US$1,849/MT;
- WMP index up 1.6%, average price US$3,278/MT.
The big movers and shakers on the day saw Anhydrous Milk Fat (AMF) drop a significant 7.0%; while Rennet Casein (RenCas) shot up by 12.1%.
Butter also saw a boost of 4.1% at the event.
Souece: Global Dairy Trade
This is the fourth consecutive decrease to the GDT index, following a bright start to the year with three increases in January and early February.
Sexed semen trial herds required
In other dairy news, this year will see a major sexed semen field trial get underway on Irish dairy farms.
The ICBF (Irish Cattle Breeding Federation), Teagasc and partner AI companies – including Dovea Genetics, Munster Cattle Breeding Group and Progressive Genetics – are proposing to undertake a trial to establish the relative performance of sexed semen compared to conventional semen.
The ICBF issued letters to numerous dairy farmers in recent days to seek participation in the trial.
Semen will be used from 11 different bulls – nine Holstein Friesian and two Jersey – and it has been X-sorted (heifer) to 90% purity.