it`s the balance sheet stupid, page-25

Tangentland (no personal criticism of a sound post) - but, there's that number again - a "$50 billion problem" or similar sized potential market (I presume originally from the POH announcement??).

Now this has been gnawing away for a while.

It just seems very very ... high(?). Has someone misplaced a decimal? (Or does it include every cow on the planet?)

Can anyone with some dairy expertise clarify this massive number?

(www.dairyAustralia.com.au) quotes our whole dairy market as being worth $3.4 billion in total (and that includes a big export component) -

Australian Dairy At A Glance (2009/10)
National Dairy Herd 1.6 million cows
Average Herd Size 220 cows
Milk Production 9,023 million litres
Average Annual Milk Production Per Cow 5,445 litres
Dairy - Australia's 3rd Largest Rural Industry $3.4 billion value at farmgate

So what % of our total milk production is totally ruined by mastitis? (10%???) If so, then - in Australia - it will only ever be a small fraction of this amount.

Now I agree that a solution to a, say, $300m total local problem is still likely to produce valuable revenue in the short-term and potentially much more overseas (albeit down the track and at much lower margins presumably).


But I'd be interested in the likely size of the market POH and its partners could 'reasonably' expect to access...


[It just somehow reminds me of all those 'guesstimates' made by companies going into China - "if we just sell one product to 10% of the population, then we'll be generating $xx billion!" - which are of course never even remotely delivered].

Thoughts?