Inside Milk
Will milk production continue to dry up?
The Dutch milk supply shows little change in June, compared to the previous month. Now that June is known, an interim position can also be drawn up and the supply (compared to 2017) appears to be only slightly behind. The question is whether milk production will continue to dry up in the second half of 2018?
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In June, the Dutch dairy farmers delivered 1,18 million tons of milk to the processors. Compared to the same month 1 year earlier, this is a minus of 1,5%. The fat percentage is 4,11%, where it was 1% 4,17 year earlier. It yields a total fat yield of 48.368 tons.
-1,39
percent
Until June, the interim score in milk supply amounted to 7,16 million tons of milk, a minus of 1,39% compared to the previous year. It is a minimal increase in the backlog since May.
Stable milk supply, stable slaughter
As a result, the second quarter in particular resulted in a fairly stable milk supply. The massacres also show a fairly stable picture. Until the end of June, it is behind by about 6,5%, when the average is compared with 2017. This means that on average more animals were slaughtered than in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Taking into account the fact that the number of phosphate rights in the market is not sufficient to cover the current herd of dairy cows, the slaughter figure paints the picture that more cows will be slaughtered in the second half. Which can be reconciled with the group that does not yet have a definitive answer about a bottleneck status.
A calculation shows that so far 2% of the rights (present in the market) have been traded. However, in reality there are more, because the implementation of the transactions at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) is experiencing delays. This means that many dairy farmers already have their cows largely on dry land, but by no means all farmers.
Intermediate position in dairy farming
It is difficult to get an exact picture of what the interim position in dairy farming looks like. Sufficient stocks of feed (in most places in the Netherlands) mean that drought is not an immediate threat. The system of phosphate rights is much more decisive. Since there is also the option to risk a fine, there is a chance of less milk. This is not certain until more cows are actually slaughtered.
The milk supply until June in recent years. This is above the 5-year average.