Successful 11th IFCN Dairy Conference in Kiel, Germany 15.Jun.2010
- International guest at the 11th IFCN Dairy Conference
From the 7th to 9th of June 2010 the IFCN had their successful 11th IFCN Dairy Conference with over 50 reseracher from more than 34 countries.
Main key findings were:
Worst dairy farm economics year observed so far
The year 2009 can be defined as the worst year for dairy farming in almost all parts of the world. IFCN is currently comparing typical dairy farms from 45 countries. First results show that less than 45% of these farms can cover their full economic costs mainly caused by very low milk prices. Compare with 2008 a substantial costs reduction in US-$ was ob-served. These cost reductions where driven by a) lower input prices, b) currency devalua-tions to the US-$, c) improvement of farmers efficiency and d) the short term cost cuttings of farmers during the economic crisis. The fast recovery of the world milk price which started in August 2009 stabilised the dairy farm economics. The final results of the IFCN farm analysis work in 2010 will be published in the IFCN Dairy Report( available in October
IFCN World dairy map 2010 - Focus on dairy regions
The world milk surplus/deficit map (Annex 3) illustrates that there are significant milk vol-umes which are moved from surplus to deficit regions within countries. The sum regional dairy trade volumes in the EU, US and China is two times bigger that the milk volume which is traded on the world market. Furthermore the milk density maps define the key milk pro-duction centers in the world. Conclusion: A dairy region perspective should be the main focus for the global dairy industry rather than looking on country developments.
IFCN milk production outlook for 2010 and 2011
The IFCN with its core competence in milk production has developed this year a formal process to estimate future milk production. The current outlook is based on the assump-tion that the key input and output prices will remain on the level of April 2010. Based on this the IFCN researcher estimated for 2010 a growth of 12 million t and for 2011 a growth of 18 million t milk (cows and buffalo milk cor-rected to ECM: 4% fat, 3,3% protein). In this case the year 2010 will be a recovery year while in 2011 milk production growth will reach the level of the years 2005 and 2006. These results should be handled with care as the IFCN is still developing their outlook methodologies.
You can here download the official press release of the IFCN Dairy Conference 2010.
