Energy & Commodities mixed · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if drought slashes New Zealand's milk production?

An NZ dairy drought is a whole-milk-powder and butter trade — long WMP at the GDT auction and watch the NZD and Fonterra payout, not CBOT wheat. Rhymes with the 2013 NZ drought that drove WMP to record highs and lifted global dairy. New Zealand dominates internationally-traded dairy, so transmission runs to Chinese WMP imports and EU butter substitution; the grain proxy is the wrong commodity for a milk-supply shock.

20%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 20% · 90% range 9–32% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 6–18 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A severe drought slashes New Zealand milk production, spiking global whole-milk-powder and butter prices. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Climate/crop supply ▲ · Food inflation ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.