The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has reported a surge in milk collections for September in the UK.

Total milk collections for Britain and Northern Ireland in September were 1.135m litres, which is up 5.2% on the same month last year.

This is broken down as 975m litres in Britain and 160m litres in Northern Ireland.

According to DEFRA, the year-to-date figures (April 2017 to September) show overall milk collections for the year in the UK are running 2.4% ahead of the same period last year.

The total pool from April to September is 7.324bn litres, with Northern Ireland constituting 1.189bn of that figure. The Northern Ireland pool is up 4.3% on last year.

The average butterfat of milk supplied in September was 4.1%, up from 4.09% last September, while protein levels were 3.35%, up from 3.32% last year.

August up

As well as seeing increases in the milk production for September, DEFRA has also revised upwards the milk supply for August.

Supply for the month was up 5.2% year on year.

Cullings ease

According to analysts FCStone, the number of cows in the UK being culled has also slowed down.

This time last year, UK dairy farmers were culling cows in reaction to a poor milk price and as a way of managing costs.

The number of cows slaughtered in the UK in September was 53,610 head. This is down 8% year on year, but according to FCStone is 5.7% ahead of the three-year average for the month.

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