But he stopped short of saying what he believed the price should be,saying next week's global dairy trade auction could alter his calculation.
In New Zealand – where Fonterra has a monopoly and up to 95 per cent of its total milk production is exported – the farm-gate price has plummeted from an average of $NZ8.65 ($7.81) to $NZ3.85 in the past two seasons.
In that time whole milk powder prices have dived from $US4999 ($6957) to $US1856 a tonne,while skim milk powder has plunged from $US4780 to $US1521 a tonne,according to Global Dairy Trade figures.
Russian trade sanctions and weakening demand from China has led to an oversupply of dairy products on global markets.
Mr Spierings said the method on how Australian farmers were paid needed to change so it wasn't based just on the farm-gate price and matched other processors.
"It's loyalty and skin in the game that can lead to an upside. You can call it a dividend,or whatever,a bonus per kilogram milk solids,"he said.
"But we need to have the conversation now about what the endgame looks like. What is the value being created – what's the size of the cake? Then we need to have a good debate with farmers ... about how are we going to share – how are we going to cut the cake?
Part of Fonterra's strategy to deliver value to farmers has been slashing 500 jobs,or about 3.3 per cent of its global workforce. Most of these jobs have been support roles in procurement,finance,human resources,information services and legal departments.
Mr Spierings said the redundancies weren't part of a company restructure but a"mindset shift",which could lead to more people being employed at Fonterra.
"I want to have a company around the world that is cash-focused.
"So there are people,our sales people,who go into the market every day and sell the product at the best possible price in the right channels... at minimum rebates and discounts. Then we run our factories in the most efficient way,so there are low losses.
"It's not a restructure. It's a growth strategy so in the end Fonterra will have more employees rather than less. We want more people who sell and can produce milk,and we need less people in support."
Mr Spierings said Fonterra,which has grown its global milk pool by 5 billion litres in recent years,has already begun selling less product into global dairy trade auctions in favour of higher value consumer markets,ingredients such as baby formula,and service industries like hotels and restaurants.
In the past two years the amount of product sold into global commodity markets has fallen from 40 to 30 per cent. It is expected to drop further,to 23 per cent,in 2018.