Daily milk production in GB is currently running over 1m litres per day (3%) below this time last year* . In the last few weeks this has also dropped below the AHDB forecasts* as dairy farmers react negatively to the disparity between costs and milk price.
If we look at DEFRA’s Milk Utilisation by Dairies data, dropping 25-30m litres in a month should help ease the supply and demand situation. The chart below is extrapolated from the DEFRA data and smoothed into a four week rolling value.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/milk-utilisation-by-dairies-in-england-and-wales
This level of reduction in milk for one or even two months will see this differential between milk supply and milk utilisation for liquid and manufacturing drop significantly.
Where did the milk reduction come from?
Looking at the number of culls reported by AHDB, there was a slight of culls around the start of October wich now seems to have abated.
The regional data shows many of the slight lift in culls was from the North of the country.
Looking at purchased feed use*, although we do not have September or October’s numbers, the use of compound feed and blends for dairy cows does not seem to have wained as a result of milk price.
This is backed up by Kingshay’s latest Dairy Costing results* which shows concentrate usage and cows in milk identical to the prior year for August. Yield per cows is up slightlly by 0.2 litres per head per day. Milk Fat% and Protein% are both up by 0.1 and 0.07 respectively.
September is the start of fall!
In America, Autumn is known as Fall, and starts about the 22nd September. This is around the time that milk flow in the UK started its fall.
Whilst some farms may well have dropped back on some purchased feed in September and October (we have no data to support as yet), we do know that the number of culls hasn’t increased, these two factors wouldn’t be enough to account for the scale of drop off.
Weather events have seen some extreme flooding in parts whilst other area’s have been fine. Grass covers and quality, in general, are still pretty good for this time of year.
Will we see more later Autumn calvers to calve in from cows that were possibly dried at the end of September?
For now, the milk flow is helping as one of a number of bullish indicators that milk price should soon start to lift.
Whilst the retail sales figures are well out of date on the AHDB website, we do know that consumption has been down. It is positiveto see the AHDB focus efforts on exports and overall consumption.