A team effort that is paying dividends for the wider New Zealand economy.<\/p>\n
That’s how Waikato Federated Farmers chair Matthew Zonderop describes a report that confirms New Zealand remains the world’s largest single-country dairy exporter.<\/p>\n
According to Rabobank’s 2026 World Dairy Map, New Zealand accounted for 22.1% of world dairy exports in 2025.<\/p>\n
“This is a genuinely positive story for New Zealand,” Zonderop told\u00a0Dairy News.<\/p>\n
“Remaining the world’s largest single-country dairy exporter, accounting for 22.1% of global dairy exports in 2025, is a significant achievement.<\/p>\n
“It reflects the sustained effort of New Zealand’s dairy farmers, sharemilkers, farm staff, rural businesses, processors, exporters, boards and senior management teams, including those at Fonterra.”<\/p>\n
The benefits extend well beyond the farm gate, says Zonderop.<\/p>\n
When the dairy sector earns export income, that money flows through rural communities, service businesses, transport operators, manufacturers and the wider New Zealand economy.<\/p>\n
“Dairy remains one of the country’s most important economic engines,” he says.<\/p>\n
The new map and accompanying report – which examine key trends and trade flows in global dairy for the period 2017 to 2025 – show global dairy trade grew by 11% across this time frame, increasing from around 9.1 billion kg in liquid milk equivalents (LME) in 2017 to 101.2 billion kg in 2025.<\/p>\n
Rabobank senior agricultural analyst Emma Higgins said the map and report highlight New Zealand’s consistent contribution to world dairy exports across this period.<\/p>\n
“If we look back across the last eight years, New Zealand’s contribution to global dairy exports has held remarkably steady, oscillating between a high of 23 billion kg (2019 & 2021) and a low of 21 billion kg (2017, 2018 & 2022). And since 2023, New Zealand’s contribution has held constant at 22 billion kg,” she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith overall dairy trade having increased, New Zealand\u2019s market share has dropped slightly, but it is still contributing well over a fifth of all global dairy exports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report says the EU bloc continues to be the world\u2019s largest dairy exporter overall \u2013 accounting for 27% of world dairy exports in 2025 \u2013 however their export share is also slowly eroding.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in 2017, the EU was responsible for closer to 30% of all global dairy exports, but since then we\u2019ve seen their overall share driven lower by falling exports into China.\u201d Higgins said.<\/p>\n
A major contributor to this fall is China\u2019s liquid milk market, where imports have declined significantly in recent years.<\/p>\n
European exporters have borne much of that impact, while New Zealand has maintained stable export volumes and has become China\u2019s largest supplier of imported liquid milk and cream since 2024.<\/p>\n
The report says the US \u2013 the world\u2019s next largest global dairy exporter behind the EU and New Zealand \u2013 has grown dairy exports across recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A team effort that is paying dividends for the wider New Zealand economy. That’s how Waikato Federated Farmers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[268833,268830,268832,268828,268829,111,268831,268827,268834,268825,43,139,69,268826,268835,268836],"class_list":["post-546915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-china-liquid-milk-imports-dairy","tag-emma-higgins-rabobank-dairy-report","tag-eu-dairy-export-share-decline","tag-global-dairy-trade-2025","tag-matthew-zonderop-federated-farmers","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-22-1-global-dairy-exports","tag-new-zealand-dairy-export-market-share","tag-new-zealand-dairy-exports-china-2024","tag-new-zealand-largest-dairy-exporter-2026","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rabobank-world-dairy-map-2026","tag-us-dairy-exports-growth-2025","tag-waikato-federated-farmers-dairy-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}