Four of the eight top-producing countries in Europe recorded decreases in milk production compared with April 2015.
However, year-to-date milk production in the European Union to the end of April rose 4%, the major contributors being Ireland up 16%, the Netherlands up 13%, Poland up 5% and Germany up 4%.
The EU Commission has forecast milk production for 2016 to grow by 1.4%, which implied a dramatic slowdown in the second half of the year.
United States milk production was also growing slowly, up 2% in May and 1% year-to-date but exports were down 20% for April and 8% year-to-date.
That was attributed to strong domestic demand for cheese, butter and whey protein, Fonterra said in its Global Dairy Update for July.
European exports were up 11% in the 12 months to the end of March when fluid and fresh dairy products rose by 27%, whey powder up 12% and cheese was up 7%.
Exports from New Zealand and Australia also increased 4% to the end of May and 6% to the end of April.
From NZ the big movers were anhydrous milk fat (AMF) and cheese while Australia increased exports of fluid, fresh products and cheese.
All product category increases showed diversion of milk away from whole milk powder (WMP) in favour of cream products like butter and AMF or down the cheese processing pathway along with whey products.
Fonterra reported imports to Latin America were up 11% in the year to March and up 23% to China in the year to May.
Latin American countries bought considerably more WMP than in the previous year while China’s pattern emphasised fluid and fresh, including UHT milk and cream, and infant formula.
Milk collection in NZ during June was 10% lower than in June 2015 but June was the slowest month, when only 10 million kilograms of milksolids were produced, out of about 1.5 billion kg for a whole year.
A record 210,000 tonnes of products were shipped in June, despite the tough global market, Fonterra said.
Its closing inventory at the end of the financial year, July 31, was expected to be significantly lower than last year.
