April milk production in Australia fell by 2.7% to 649.1m litres, according to the latest milk production report from Dairy Australia.
Overall, in the year to date, Australia has produced 1.2% less milk compared to this time last year at 8,247.3m litres, the figures show.
The state of Victoria, Australia’s largest milk producing territory, produced 4.7% less milk in April 2016 compared to the corresponding month in 2015.
Earlier this year, Dairy Australia revised its Australian milk production forecast for 2015/16 and anticipates an overall decrease of between 1% and 2% for the season to June.
This implies a total milk volume of between 9.55 and 9.65 billion litres for the season.
Meanwhile, Australian dairy co-op Murray Goulburn (MG) recently announced that it has paid its 2,500 supplier farmers too much for milk over the past 10 months.
It has been estimated that this overpayment is in the region of €125m and the co-op has said that suppliers will have to pay this back.
MG said that it will manage this via adjustments to the milk payments over the next three years by introducing a Milk Supply Support Package (MSSP).
The co-op had continued to hold its milk price up, despite the challenging global prices ahead of the overpayment announcement.
Four members of the board of MG have resigned following the revelations, including Managing Director, Gary Helou and Chief Financial Officer, Brad Hingle.
In the aftermath of the MG announcement, Fonterra Australia, which had previously forecast a milk price of $3.90/kgms (19.30c/L) was forced to match MG’s price of $5.60/kgms (27.69c/L) which AHDB Dairy has said was to satisfy benchmark obligations.
Fonterra Australia is now offering loans to its milk suppliers in order to bump up the price they’re being paid for milk.
