Dairy's role in sustaining New Zealand - Fonterra

2 Dairy’s role in generating growth
1.3 Contribution to regional incomes
In many rural areas, the contribution of the dairy sector to the local economy is far greater
than the national average of 2.8% mentioned above. The dairy sector pumps hundreds of
millions of dollars of revenue into regional economies each year. Table 1 shows the 15 highest
revenue generating dairy districts in New Zealand.
Dairy production injected over $700 million into the Southland district economy in 2009, with
South Taranaki and Matamata-Piako both receiving well over half a billion dollars. For smaller
district economies such as Ashburton ($471 million), Waipa ($361 million) and Selwyn ($270
million), the value of dairy production, relative to the total size of the district economy, is likely
to be significant 3 . Also see Box story 1.
Table 1 Value of regional dairy production
$ millions, 2009
Region Dairy revenue
Southland 710.35
South Taranaki 616.56
Matamata-Piako 552.12
Ashburton 471.11
Waikato 389.91
Waipa 361.00
Selwyn 269.91
South Waikato 262.53
Rotorua 253.55
Otorohanga 234.54
New Plymouth 206.31
Hauraki 196.40
Tararua 188.28
Timaru 185.13
Clutha 181.72
Notes: (1) Based on $5.50 price per Kg MS, 35c per Kg MS for stock sales and 4c per Kg of MS for other income
Source: Dairy New Zealand, Fonterra, NZIER
1.4 Contribution to export performance
Dairy exports were $10.4 billion in calendar year 2009, accounting for around 26% of NZ’s
total goods exports. As Table 2 shows, this contribution far outstrips that of any other goods
export sector. The third column in the table shows that dairy exports are twice those of the
meat sector, over 6 times larger than all fruit exports, nine times larger than wine exports,
twelve times larger than aluminium exports and 17 times larger than wool exports.
In fact, dairy exports are about the same as the sum of the next four largest export sectors:
meat, wood, mineral fuels (oil) and fruit & nuts.
3. Regional GDP information at this level of detail is not available from Statistics New Zealand, so the shares cannot be
calculated.