French milk production fell to its lowest point in seven years for the month of November according to new figures from Eurostat. French milk collections for November totalled just over 1.8bn litres, a near 8% decline compared with the same month last year.

French milk collections for the six-month period from June to November equated to 11.2bn litres, which is 5% below the 11.8bn litres collected from French dairy farmers in the same period last year. Cumulative milk production in France from January to November 2016 was just under 22bn litres. This is more than 2% lower, or 400m litres less, than what French dairy farmers produced for the first 11 months of 2015.

The sharp decline in French milk deliveries comes as no surprise, particularly after the French government added a top-up to all dairy farmers who entered the EU’s milk production reduction scheme.

Under the top-up, French dairy farmers received an additional 10c/litre on top of the 14.4c/l payment from the European Commission for the first 5% of the milk they cut under the reduction scheme.

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