Dr Hauser flew across the Tasman to the IDF dairy summit this week and as promised revelations are revealed.

.. and it is all a bit of worry. We are ever the skeptics here at Xcheque.com (economic gravity and all that) but Dr Hauser seems to have been caught up in the fervour of dairy industry enthusiasm.

This is his headline, not ours, so let's hope it is fervour and not fever.

... ~ ...

As I settled in with the rest of the expectant audience at the Dairy Policies & Economics session of the 2010 IDF Dairy Summit, I made a mental note to listen very carefully and try to filter the usual rhetoric from information of value. I know that followers of this blog have a low threshold for BS - unless of course it is being thrown at the many and various institutions of the global dairy industry.

Many pages of notes ensued but as I am pressed for time I am only going to give you the absolute highlight of the Conference ... and it was a WOW moment.

My conference highlight came from former EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel ... and it is simply this:

Click on image to enlarge

Source: The future shape of the Common Agricultural Policy - Implications for dairy, M. Fischer Boel. IDF World Dairy Summit, Auckland, 2010

In a very understated way the respected and experienced global dairy analyst sitting next to me was called to say "That's an important slide".

Yes it is.

Mme Fischer Boel didn't say this but the slide says:

"Look at what we have done in the way of trade and agricultural industry reform in the past 20 years. Now stop complaining and let's get on with the business of competing in the global dairy market".

To which I would respond - the subsidy story is not completely over yet but my goodness we have come a long way.

The companion piece to this chart came from Tim Hunt of Rabobank. Tim showed a chart of the Oceania price for wholemilk powder over the past 15 years.

Click on image to enlarge

Source: New fingers on the invisible hand, Tim Hunt, Rabobank. IDF World Dairy Summit, Auckland, 2010

The contention here is that we have moved to a new trading range for dairy commodities, courtesy of the shift in EU and US trade policy and the emergence of the Asian market - particularly China.

I think I'm going to have to take Tim to task on his target trading range, and in association with that Mme Fischer Boel on the projections in one of her other slides. But as I said, time is short and let's finish with all that goodwill and enthusiasm still in the room.

Editors note: Tim Hunt from Rabobank has made the qualification that the target above refers to their projection for the average WMP price. They believe the level of volatility will be much higher.