New Standards Set at IFCN
UK - The International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN) has improved the monitoring of world prices for milk and feed on its website www.ifcndairy.org. Starting officially from January 2013 the following innovations can be found next to the prices under "charts and data"
28 January 2013
2 minute read
New Combined IFCN World Milk Price Indicator
The IFCN has improved its "IFCN world milk price indicator" to reflect the world market trends even better. The former standard "IFCN world milk price indicator" was based on SMP & butter price only. The "New combined IFCN world milk price indicator" considers as well cheese & whey and WMP prices. It is calculated as a weighted average of the three IFCN world milk price indicators for 1. SMP & butter (35%), 2. Cheese & whey (45 per cent) and 3. WMP (20 per cent) based on their world dairy trade shares (commodity based).
The "New combined IFCN world milk price indicator" illustrates the world market price level for milk. It represents the milk price a milk processor could theoretically pay to its farmers, if it was selling its products on the world spot market and operating at standardised costs. A wide range between the three IFCN world milk price indicators (see graph) indicates economic stress for specialised dairies, if their main product is trading at the lower bound of the range. For more details please see website.
From now on, this new indicator replaces the former standard IFCN world milk price indicator and will be updated monthly. The graph and data are available on our website.
World Feed Price Developments
Next to the milk price, the world feed price developments and the milk: feed price ratio are shown on the website as charts describing the developments from 1996 to 2012 with monthly data since 2006. The data behind the feed prices are available as well and will be updated monthly.
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