Domestic milk intake in February 2024 was down by over 13% when compared with the same month in the previous year, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has said.
The new data published today (Friday, April 5) shows that milk processors and co-ops took in an estimated 330.4 million litres last month.
This is a decrease of 50.6 million litres (-13.3%) on the February 2023 figure of 381 million litres.
Fat content for February 2024 was 4.44%, down from 4.46% in February 2023. Protein content also fell from 3.50% to 3.43% in the 12 months to February 2024.
CSO
In January, milk processors and co-ops took in an estimated at 140.1 million litres, which was down by 40.4 million litres (-22.4%) on the same month in 2023.
The data shows that the domestic milk intake stood at 478.9 million litres for the first two months of 2024.
This is down by almost 15% or 82.5 million litres compared to the 561.4 million litres produced in the same period in the previous year.
It also marks a decrease of 71.8 million litres (-13%) when compared with January to February 2022.
Milk sold for human consumption was estimated at 36.5 million litres in February 2024, which is down slightly on the 36.6 million litres in the same month last year.
Butter production decreased from 11,700 tonnes in February 2023 to 7,600 tonnes in February 2024.
Data was not provided by the CSO for sales of whole milk or skimmed milk or skimmed milk powder (SMP) production in February.
Milk supplies
Meanwhile milk supplies in a number of co-ops are down by as much as 10%, with this drop in milk volume largely due to challenging weather conditions.
The challenging spring has placed significant pressure on dairy farms from both a feed and milk output perspective.
Agriland contacted 15 Irish co-ops to determine the impact that the weather has had on the milk supplies so far in 2024.
Five of the 15 co-ops responded with Dairygold stating that milk supply is back 9% on 2023.
Arrabawn similarly stated that milk supply is back between 8 – 10% in February compared to 2023.
Lakeland Dairies said that supply in the Republic of Ireland is down 3% year to date, while Aurivo says that milk supply in February was up 1% on 2023.
In Tirlan’s milk price announcement for February’s supplies, it stated that yields/cow are 10% lower than the same period last year.