The Netherlands is first to report its full February milk supply figures to Eurostat, and they confirm the end of the Dutch milk surge.
Adjusted for the leap year in 2016, February milk statistics for the Netherlands are marginally lower than the same month last year, just over 1bn litres. This compares with a 22% year-on-year increase between February 2015 and 2016.
The Dutch supply curve has fallen back in line with previous year’s figures since last November, under the combined effects of the EU’s milk supply reduction scheme and phosphate limitations. The Dutch government is in the process of paying farmers to cull 30,000 cows under the first tranche of a plan aiming to shrink the national herd by 60,000 head to comply with EU effluent regulations.
Although January’s Dutch milk supply showed a marginal year-on-year increase, the EU’s fourth-largest dairy producer has now essentially put an end to the surge that saw its output grow by 4.3% in the nine months following the abolition of milk quotas in 2015, and again by 7.5% over the whole of 2016. This made the Netherlands the fastest-growing EU milk producer bar Cyprus and Luxemburg.
Source: Irish Farmers Journal