Drought conditions in New Zealand for much of the last couple of months have slowed milk production. Most New Zealand dairy farmers are drying off cows right now as the 2019/20 milking season, which runs from June to May in the southern hemisphere, comes to an end.

The latest production figures from DCANZ shows April milk collections in New Zealand amounted to just over 1.3bn litres, which is down almost 1% on the same month last year. This brings New Zealand milk production for the first 11 months of the 2019/20 milking season to just over 20.1bn litres of milk, which is down almost 1%, or more than 110m litres, on the same period a year previous.

Around 800m litres of milk will be produced in New Zealand for May, meaning the country is on course to produce just under 21bn litres of milk for its 2019/20 milking season.