EU to hit peak milk next year before 10-year decline

The European Commission’s latest 10-year agricultural outlook expects that next year will be the final year of EU milk volume growth after a decade of post-quota expansion as “more ambitious environmental objectives” bite at farm-level.

The report foresees 2025 as marking a medium-term “turning point” where the scales will tip in the balance of declining milk output across the EU as a whole.

Rising milk yields of 0.9% yearly on a per cow basis – half the rate seen in the past decade – are not anticipated to be significant enough to keep pace with an EU dairy herd shrinking 1% annually out to 2035.

But this overall forecast is anticipated to play out in two halves – that of the 14 member states that had joined the EU before 2004 and that of the 13 newer, former-eastern bloc member states.

Both of these halves witnessed milk volume growth of around 10% since the abolition of quotas.

While eastern member states are expected to see their combined milk pool increase by another 10% in the next decade, older, western member states are expected to lose half of their combined post-quota output gain over the next 10 years.

Should the Commission’s modelling play out, a lower milk output will result in the EU accounting for fewer international dairy exports than it has in the past at a time of increasing global dairy demand.

EU member states accounted for close on 26% of global dairy exports between 2022 and 2024, but this is expected to fall to 22.6% by 2035.

The report anticipates a continued rising demand for dairy among the EU’s consumers, who although are expected to be consuming 2l less fresh milk per capita by 2035, will demand more cheese and dairy products.