Its earlier projection was for a 7% fall due to the wet cold spring and lack of rain in the North Island, but weather conditions for their late summer and autumn can affect this prediction.

December milk production for the whole country was down 3% in December from the same month a year ago while milk production for the calendar year 2016 was down by 2%.

Fonterra Australia’s collections in January totalled 10.3m kgMS, down 2.2% on last January. Season to date Australian collections total 75.5m kgMS, down 6.9% year-on-year.

Bucking the trend

Milk production in the US bucks the trend. It was up by 2.4% in December and finished the year 2016 1.9% higher than the previous year.

EU milk production for 2016 was up marginally overall but production in the UK and France continue to decline.

In South America milk production in Argentina dropped by 14.4%, Uruguay by 10.2%, Brazil by 5.1% from the previous year.

Australia was down by 6.7% while Russia was down by just 0.24%.

Ireland becomes the EU’s largest butter exporter

New Zealand milk production projected down 5% this season

Fonterra, which collects and processes 86% of New Zealand’s milk production, expects milk collection for the 2016-17 season to come in 5% below last season.