Total EU milk production for May, the EU’s peak milk producing month, is estimated at 14.18m tonnes, down 0.01% year-on-year.

However production is up 1.75% and 4.59% on the three- and five-year averages respectively.

Ireland was among a host of EU member states with higher production figures than last year but big reductions in production from France and Germany left EU production behind on 2016 figures.

For the first five months of the year, EU milk production came in at 65.43m tonnes – down 1.07%.

Global

Globally, production increases in the US and Argentina have offset the fall off in EU, New Zealand and Australian production.

Production for the top five milk global producers in May is estimated at just over 25m tonnes, a marginal increase of 0.61% year-on-year.

Looking at production for the first five months of the year, by the top five, production is down slightly by 0.27% to 122.11m tonnes.

Fats and proteins

Meanwhile, EU figures also show that the weighted average fat content of May milk in the EU was 3.96%.

This was a decrease on the 4.02% recorded in April and down from 3.99% in May of last year.

Protein in milk was also down, with the May weighted average protein reported at 3.35%, a decrease of 3.37% in April and up from 3.34% in May 2016.

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