Two new tools are equipping farmers and buyers, for what could be a difficult few months for the dairy sector.

Rabobank is predicting that global prices will pick up in the medium term, but remain low in the short term as the market works through a global surplus.

Nicola Shadbolt from Massey University says they're introducing a new milk production predictor, to keep dairy buyers better informed.

"It enables them to get a better feel for the flow of milk and what it might look like over the next three months."

The university is also introducing a new calculator, to allow dairy farmers to translate commodity prices to farm-gate values.

She says a new calculator will allow farmers to translate commodity values into farm-gate prices.

"Y'know, we've got a sort of an industry academia connection here. An industry need for improving the market and ending up with the tool that actually is pretty straight forward to use."

The university is also introducing a tool for dairy buyers to predict milk production.