Last month saw a significant 30% jump in Fonterra’s milk collections compared with the same month last year.
Fonterra figures show that the business collected 108 million kilograms of milk solids last month, up 30.9% on April 2013, evenly split between the North Island and South Island.
Fonterra says milk collection across New Zealand for the 11 months to 30 April 2014 reached 1,524 million kgMS, 8% higher than the same period last Season. Rain from ex Tropical Cyclone Ita brought relief from the dry conditions that had been impacting volumes in the North Island.
North Island collection in April reached 54m kgMS. This was 51% ahead of April last season, which was impacted by widespread drought. However, the strong winds and heavy rain damaged properties in parts of the country.
The South Island continued to experience favourable conditions with collection reaching 54m kgMS, 16% ahead of the same period last Season. The Southern regions were also impacted by the severe weather in April.
Fonterra also has outlined in recent days that milk collection across Australia for the 10 months to 30 April 2014 reached 103m kgMS, 3% behind the same period last season as a result of below average spring conditions.
However, it noted recent rainfall across most regions and particularly favourable pasture growth conditions in Tasmania resulted in April milk collection of 8.5m kgMS, 7% ahead of the same period last year.