Results just published this weekend show we are really seeing a fall-off in milk supply from the big players in milk in Europe.

Italy, Ireland and Poland are all up 4%, 3.7% and 0.7%, respectively.

However, all three are small players when it comes to volumes of milk from European countries.

On average, for the first six months of the year, EU milk supply held steady. It didn’t go up or down. However, for me, the big news from this latest release of data is that the big

These three countries are the engine room, the powerhouse of milk production in the EU.

When these countries are not blowing the lights out on supply, commodity buyers know that and they are more cautious on pushing the pause buttons on a deal and will try to secure what they can.

The fact less milk was collected means there were less dairy products produced in the EU for the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year.

There was a fall-off in butter produced (-0.9%), there was less skim milk produced (- 3.7%), and less whole milk powder (-12.1%). There was more cheese made (+2.9%) for the six-month period.

Environmental gains

It will be very interesting to see how this picture evolves over the next number of months, but also years, as the EU pushes for environmental rather than production gains.

Maybe the self-imposed, unregulated, environmental quota will mean higher milk prices for the next 10 years.