The domestic milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers was estimated at 723.8 million litres for March 2020, representing a 2.1% increase on the 708.7 million litres for the same month in 2019, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Comparing the two months, total milk sold for human consumption decreased by 1% to 46.3 million litres last month (down from 46.7 million litres). Meanwhile, butter production was up 2.7%, to 22,800t from 22,200t.
Further data shows there were slight changes in fat content and protein content. Fat content last month was 4.27%, compared to 4.23% for March 2019, while protein content moved from 3.32% down to 3.3%.
If the figure for milk sales for human consumption is broken down, whole milk sales increased very slightly from 29 million litres to 29.2 million. At the same time skimmed and semi-skimmed milk sales decreased from 17.7 million litres to 17.1 million litres.
Data for skimmed milk powder and cheese was not available for last month.
Livestock
In other CSO data released this week, the number of sheep slaughtered in March 2020 was shown to have increased by 33.5% when compared to March 2019.
The CSO noted that a further comparison of March 2020 and March 2019 slaughtering figures also shows that cattle slaughterings increased by 4.7%.
Meanwhile, pig slaughterings increased by 9.7%, the office said.
Meanwhile, sheep slaughterings increased by 14.3% over the three-month period compared to the same time-frame in 2019.
Pig slaughterings, on the other hand, decreased by 0.3% on that time-frame, the figures show.