Both the US and New Zealand saw milk production drop in July by 0.5% and 0.7% respectively.

According to the Dairy Industry Newsletter, July milk production in the US was down by 8,400m litres.

It was down by 0.6% in the 24 major producing states, while production per cow was lower than the same month last year.

Dairy cows numbers were also down 13,000 to 9.4m, according to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

New Zealand and Australia

New Zealand's milk production in July, the second month of the new season, was down by 0.7% (278m litres) and down 0.1% in milk solids.

Australia's milk production in June, the last month of the milk season, was up by 1.2%.

This was the second consecutive year-on-year increase following 10 months of contraction.

Production in Victoria was up 0.4%, South Australia was up 1.8%, New South Wales was up 3.5% and Tasmania's was up by 6.5%.

There were just two areas of Australia where milk production for July was down - Queensland (-0.8%) and Western Australia (-0.3%).

According to the newsletter, production for the 2022 to 2023 season as a whole is estimated to be down 5% from the year previous and down 14% from the 2015 to 2016 peak.