The 2019/20 milking season is off to a good start in New Zealand, with early signs pointing to milk production being ahead of last year. On Monday, the New Zealand dairy industry published figures showing milk production in August stood at 1.35bn litres, which is almost 1% ahead of the same month last year.

This brings milk production in New Zealand for the first three months of the 2019/20 milking season, which runs from June 2019 to May 2020 in the southern hemisphere, to a combined 1.8bn litres. This is 3% ahead of milk production for the corresponding period last year.

Conversely, in neighbouring Australia, milk production continues its rapid decline. For July, Australian milk production plunged more than 8% year on year to 600m litres.

For the 2018/19 milking season in Australia, which runs from July to June, milk production plunged almost 6% year on year to just 8.8bn litres. Not so many years ago, Australian dairy farmers were producing close to 10bn litres every year.