New figures from Europe on milk production for April show the EU-28 produced 437m litres of milk per day in the month.
Analysing the figures, the UK-based AHDB says this was 5m litres per day more than April last year, although that only equates to a year-on-year increase of 1.1%. Between October 2015 and March 2016, the EU-28 was running 5% up on the previous year.
Breaking the data down by country shows that milk production continued to increase in Germany and Netherlands, but fell in the UK, France and Ireland.
Milk production in Ireland fell 4.1% in April when compared to the same month last year, the first fall year on year since March 2015.
Domestic Irish milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers was estimated at 752.1m litres for April 2016.
The fall comes on the back of exceptionally cold month in April which hit grass growth and milk production on most dairy farms.
Also of note, is that April 2015 was the first-month post-quota removal and on many farms milk was held in bulk tanks in order to avoid superlevy bills this contributed to exceptionally strong April production 12 months ago.
Total EU milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers in the 12-month period after the end of the quota regime was almost 150,000 million litres. This represents a 4.5% increase when compared with the 12-month period immediately preceding the end of the regime.
The 10 EU Member States with the largest milk intake accounted for almost 86% of total EU milk intake. Ireland had the largest percentage increase in milk intake (18.5%) whereas Italy’s milk intake decreased by 2.2%.
