September’s milk production was up by 0.8% to 970 million litres on a year earlier and August’s growth was up 3.8% to produce 799.5m litres.
Victoria, which last season produced 65.7% of Australia’s total milk output, produced 13.4m litres less (-1.8%) in October.
With a 2014 regional share of 4.2%, Queensland was the only other state to face a fall in milk output for the month with a drop of 727,000 litres (-1.9%), though its production has been less than last season for every month this season.
New South Wales and Tasmania, which accounted for 11.9% and 9.2% of last season’s production, saw gains in milk production for October of 2.1m litres (1.9%) and 5.3m litres (4.8%).
Western Australia also had substantial gains, increasing by 2.2m litres for the month (6.2%).
Season-to-date up 2%
Season-to-date (July-October), Australia’s milk production is 2% above the same period a year earlier. This has dropped from growth of 3.1% a month earlier.
Season-to-date growth has been seen in all States with the exception of Queensland (-1.8%). Victoria has season-to-date growth of 1.3%, NSW 3.9%, Tasmania 3.5%, South Australia 4.4%, and Western Australia 3.5%.
Comparing with other major milk producing nations, New Zealand’s milk production for October is down 2.7% on a year earlier while US milk production is up 0.1%.
