MARKET volatility on the world stage is "the new normal", Gwynn Jones, AHDB dairy sector chairman, told the Semex conference this week.

The former NFU vice-president said that the key to future prosperity would be ensuring farmers could profit when times were good and when there were dips in the market. The challenging times for dairy farmers were likely to last for a good bit of 2015.

“Right here, right now, in this period of immense pressure, we need to concentrate on supporting dairy farmers with short-term guidance to work through the period of low prices as well as set themselves up to profit from an improving situation in the future," he said.

“It is important AHDB continues to be focussed on the longer term and remains optimistic about the future growth and demand opportunities for the farming industry. Market volatility on the world stage is however a reality and our challenge is how we best manage it and become increasingly competitive to survive the downturns and profit from the upcycle.”

Mr Jones said that DairyCo was looking into gaining a better understanding of the futures markets and hedging to see what, if anything is feasible to be of benefit to dairy farmers. This is not as straight forward in dairy as in grain markets because of the perishable nature of milk, he added.