2015 will be milk’s year

According to the Agricultural Economics Research Institute’s (AKI) latest report, after the 1 April 2015 lifting of the milk quota a robust production growth is expected in the countries where production has been hold back up until now. The European Commission’s medium-tern forecast says that the European Union’s milk production can reach 166.6 million tons by 2024. In the EU-15 cow’s milk production may grow by 11.5 percent to 140 million tons and in the EU-13 it can increase by 5 percent to 26.6 million tons. Expectedly 12 percent more milk will be purchased from farmers but direct selling will reduce by 12 percent. The EU’s milk production will concentrate to the regions where production costs are low (Denmark, Germany, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom), where farmers and processing firms realised significant investments in the last few years. According to the forecast, less milk will be purchased from farmers in Slovakia, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, the Czech Republic and Spain between 2014 and 2024