Global milk supplies seem to be steading, albeit at a high level, which in turn has led to Irish milk prices finally taking a turn in the right direction.

The majority of Irish processors increased offerings for July supplies with the average base price now sitting at 37.82c/L.

This follows domestic intake for Q2 dropping by 92.4 million litres compared to 2025, to 3.25 billion, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

However domestic intake for Q2 is still up 155.3 million litres when compared to 2024.

According to the CSO, fat content was 4.18% for the month of July, down from 4.21% in the year previous.

Meanwhile protein sat at 3.48%, a fall from the 3.49% recorded in July 2025.

Overall, domestic milk intake stood at an estimated 982.7 million litres for July 2026.

With solids down, yields down, and base prices finally starting to turn, we look to our neighbours in the west, to see how milk production is faring out there.

US milk production

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), milk production has been up across Q1 and Q2 in the 24 major milk producing states.

The USDA confirmed milk production rose by 2.3% in July 2026 compared to July 2025, with the 24 states producing approximately 19.4 billion pounds, or 8.37 billion litres.

That is 7.39 billion litres more than what Ireland produced in the same month.

This comes from an estimated 9.27 million head of dairy cows across the 24 major milk producing states.

Therefore, each cow produced an average of 2,093 pounds for the month of July, which equates to 921L of milk, an average of 29.7L/cow/day.

The 24 major states recorded by the USDA consisted of:

Arizona - 196,000 cows;
California - 1,715,000 cows;
Colorado - 211,000 cows;
Florida - 97,000 cows;
Georgia - 89,000 cows;
Idaho - 723,000 cows;
Illinois - 74,000 cows;
Indiana - 189,000 cows;
Iowa - 242,000 cows;
Kansas - 213,000 cows;
Michigan - 453,000 cows;
Minnesota - 445,000 cows;
New Mexico - 236,000 cows;
New York - 644,000 cows;
Ohio - 252,000 cows;
Oregon - 120,000 cows;
Pennsylvania - 460,000 cows;
South Dakota - 234,000 cows;
Texas - 700,000 cows;
Utah - 98,000 cows;
Vermont - 114,000 cows;
Virginia - 67,000 cows;
Washington - 239,000 cows;
Wisconsin - 1,272,000 cows.

There was a further 440,000 dairy cows milked in the US outside of these 24 states, adding a further 1 billion pounds of milk or 440 million litres to its milk pool.

It is often said that when milk price drops, the US culls hard and fast.

However, over the last year since global milk prices crashed, the dairy herd across these 24 major producing states has actually increased by 185,000/head.

In fact, the dairy herd across these states increased by 2,000 head just between June and July of this year.

This has led to US milk production rising over the last 12 months, while Irish milk production fell backward.

Milk price reductions came as a result of the global milk pool growing by approximately 2.6% in 2025.

So if major producers such as the US are not showing any signs of slowing down with production, when will Irish farmers see milk prices return to a bas price of at least 40c/L?