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Good milk price leads to extra supply in Europe
There were positives in the milk supply in March in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium, Germany and France. There were, however, differences in growth. In the Netherlands and neighboring Germany, about 3% more milk was added, in Belgium the picture was comparable, but in France things were a little more hesitant.
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This is evident from supply data from the countries concerned, as collected by DCA. In Germany, a large volume was added in March and approximately 3% more was supplied than in the same month last year. No monthly data are yet available for April, but on a weekly basis supply continued to increase. According to German sources, there has been the strongest supply growth in three years. Supply also increased significantly in the Netherlands and Belgium in March.
In France, the supply initially lagged slightly, but increased significantly in March.
In all four countries, dairy farmers had to deal with sharply falling milk prices, but apparently the milk prices that farmers received in March were still high enough to make a significant adjustment to milk production. In France, dairy farmers there benefit from a late adjustment in the milk price.
Last year, when dairy farmers in almost all of Europe received a lot of extra milk money, this was not the case for French farmers. They were bound by existing agreements with French supermarkets and therefore could not go up. This year this will be partly compensated by price agreements that remain relatively high.