Milk production in the US continues to rise above last year’s levels with the latest figures from the US Department of Agriculture indicating that milk collections in November were 2.4% higher than the same month in 2015.

Almost 7.8m tonnes were collected last month, meaning that US milk production in the first 11 months of the year stands at 88.3m tonnes, which is 1.8% higher than the same period last year.

Forecasts indicate that production is on course to reach 96m tonnes over the 12 months of 2016, which will be the highest annual milk output on record in the US.

Compared with last November, cow numbers have increased from 8.64m to 8.67m and output per cow has increased from 27.4kg/day to 28.0kg/day, resulting in the increased overall milk production.

New Zealand

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the latest figures from DCANZ (Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand) show that milk collections for November were 2.85m tonnes, a 4.5% decline compared with the same month last year.

At this week’s GDT auction in Zealand, the final auction of the year recorded a 0.5% decline, however the overall benchmark dairy index is in a much healthier position than it was this time last year.

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