The latest figures from the Netherlands show that Dutch dairy farmers continue to cull cow numbers in the face of new phosphate quotas introduced this year. October milk production in the Netherlands was down almost 6% year on year to just over 1bn litres.

This leaves Dutch milk production for the first 10 months of 2018 down more than 2% on the same period last year.

The price of phosphate quota in the Netherlands now stands at €230/kg. A farmer would need to buy 43kg of quota for each extra cow they wish to stock on their farm, meaning the cost of expanding herd numbers in the Netherlands today is roughly €10,000/cow.

Faced with these expansion constraints, many Dutch farmers are now culling herd numbers or selling out of dairying altogether. Meanwhile, in Germany, new figures released by Eurostat show the severe impact the summer drought had on milk production, as German milk collections fell sharply during August and September when the drought was at its peak.

In the first half of 2018, German milk production had been growing at an average of just over 3% each month, which is a lot of extra milk. However, for August and September, this growth in milk supplies collapsed to almost zero as feed supplies became scarce.

In France, Europe’s second-largest milk producer, milk production growth also slowed sharply, with August collections down 1% on 2017 levels while September supplies fell 2% on the previous year.