Despite all the market uncertainty created by COVID-19, global milk production is firmly in growth mode for 2020 with milk supplies from all of the key exporting regions looking quite strong. In the US, milk production has moved up a gear in recent months with July and August milk supplies up 2% on the same period last year.

For the US, that’s a lot of extra milk. US milk production for the first eight months of 2020 (Jan-Aug) now stands at 65.5bn litres, which is 1.8%, or 1.2bn litres, ahead of the same period last year. Meanwhile in the southern hemisphere, where the new milking season is just beginning, Argentinian milk production is up a whopping 8% year on year, while Australian milk supplies are running 3% ahead of last year.

Spring milk

In New Zealand, it’s still early days but early spring milk production is currently 5% ahead of last year at a cumulative 1.9bn litres. Closer to home in Europe, almost all countries are showing increased milk flows.

In Germany and France, the two largest milk producers in Europe, milk production is running at close to 1% ahead of last year. However, August milk collections in both countries was down slightly as a summer heatwave hit production.

Milk production is also in growth mode so far in 2020 for other major producers in Europe such as the Netherlands, Poland and Ireland. The UK is the only major milk producer in Europe where milk supplies are down on last year.