Falling milk prices have failed to dampen Irish milk production with creameries and pasteurisers taking in 12.2% more milk in July 2015 compared to 2014, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has said.
Domestic milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers was estimated at 772.0m litres for July 2015, the CSO figures show.
Comparing the July 2015 milk produce figures with those for July 2014 shows that total milk sold for human consumption increased by 8.4% to 43.1m litres.
Butter production was up 20.8% year-on-year to 24,500t, according to the CSO.
For the first seven months of the year, domestic milk intake has increased by 8.6% the CSO figures show.
As of July 2015, some 4,039.5m litres of milk was taken in by creameries and pasteurisers in the first seven months of 2015. This is up from the 3,719.5m litres taken in in the same period for 2014.
Image: CSO
EU milk deliveries
Looking at the overall EU figures, there was a 0.8% increase in cows’ milk collected between January and June, according to latest Milk Market Observatory figures.
Like Ireland, the amount of milk collected peaked in May, at approximately 14m tonnes.
This then declined in June to approximately 13.5m tonnes, the figures show.
MMO
Comparing January to June of 2014 with the figures from the 2015 period, Ireland has had the highest amount of milk deliveries with a 7.8% increase.
Denmark, who in 2013 produced around the same amount of milk as Ireland (5m tonnes), had 0.2% less milk collected in January to June 2015 compared with the same time in 2014.
Hungary had the next highest number of milk deliveries with an increase of 7.4%, followed by Luxembourg with an increase of 5.5% and Portugal with an increase of 5.3%.
The UK has only seen an increase of 1.4% in milk deliveries comparing year-on-year figures.
On the other side of things, Romania has seen a decrease of 7.8% in milk collections, Cyprus has seen a decline in 6.6% and Estonia 4.6%.