OPINION: With 10,500 dairy farms, New Zealand continues to punch above its weight around the world.<\/p>\n
The latest Rabobank 2026 World Dairy Map confirms that New Zealand accounted for 22.1% of world dairy exports in 2025 – retaining the tag of the world’s largest single-country dairy exporter.<\/p>\n
The EU bloc continues to be the world’s largest dairy exporter overall, accounting for 27% of world dairy exports in 2025, however their export share is also slowly eroding.<\/p>\n
The US – the world’s next largest global dairy exporter behind the EU and New Zealand – is growing dairy exports across recent years.<\/p>\n
However, New Zealand’s consistent contribution to world dairy exports must be applauded.<\/p>\n
Over the last eight years, New Zealand’s contribution to global dairy exports has held remarkably steady, oscillating between a high of 23 billion kgMS and a low of 21 billion kgMS. And since 2023, New Zealand’s contribution has held constant at 22 billion kgMS.<\/p>\n
This has a positive flow-on effect on rural communities and the wider economy.<\/p>\n
Fonterra’s milk price directly injects over $13-$14 billion into New Zealand’s economy annually, including rural businesses connected to the dairy industry.<\/p>\n
The report also challenges past claims that dairy is a “sunset industry”.<\/p>\n
There will always be challenges, including market volatility, international competition and changing consumer preferences.<\/p>\n
However, as the report confirms that New Zealand dairy remains globally relevant, internationally competitive and critically important to our country’s economic future.<\/p>\n
Credit goes to the team of farmers, processors and employees, sharemilkers, farm workers, scientists and support staff behind NZ dairy’s phenomenal success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OPINION: With 10,500 dairy farms, New Zealand continues to punch above its weight around the world. The latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[269473,269481,269477,269474,111,269472,269478,269476,269471,269480,43,139,69,269479,269475],"class_list":["post-548589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-500-dairy-farms","tag-dairy-industry-importance-new-zealand-economy","tag-fonterra-13-billion-economy","tag-fonterra-milk-price-economic-impact","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-10","tag-new-zealand-dairy-exports-steady-eight-years","tag-new-zealand-dairy-global-relevance","tag-new-zealand-dairy-industry-economic-contribution","tag-new-zealand-dairy-internationally-competitive","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-dairy-rural-community-economic-impact","tag-nz-dairy-sunset-industry-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548589","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=548589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}