The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that milk intake by Irish processors in June was up on June 2015 figures.
Processors took in approximately 856.2m litres in June 2016, which was 4.5% above the corresponding 2015 figure.
The figures show that while the amount of milk sold for human consumption increased by 3.4% to 43.2m litres, butter production was down 8.7% to 21,100t, after being up in May by 10.5%.
The June figures are back somewhat on supplies taken in May, which were estimated at 918.0m.
That was a 4.9% increase in volumes above the corresponding figure for milk production for May 2015.
Meanwhile, figures from across the EU show that Irish milk intake for the first five months of the year was up 12.3% on the first five months of 2015. But it wasn’t the largest percentage increase in Europe. Cyprus, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic had the largest year-on-year six month increases.
Europe produced 66.119m litres of milk in the first five months of the year, up from 63,258m litres for the first five months of 2015.
April EU production figures showed that the EU-28 produced 437m litres of milk per day in the month, around 5m litres per day more than April last year, a year-on-year increase of 1.1%.