Even though it produces only one-eighth the total milk of the European Union, New Zealand ranks first in world dairy product exports. That's mainly because the island nation has more dairy cows than people. For the most recent production season, the Kiwis produced 20.6 million metric tons of milk compared to 160.4 million metric tons for the 30 countries that belong to the European Union. In honor of June Dairy Month, let's unravel some other milk production factoids.
What individual country produces the most milk?
That depends . . . in theory it's India, which netted 141.7 million metric tons (there are 2,205 pounds in a metric ton) last year. However, India has a number of internal processing and marketing issues, which means nearly half of its 312.4 billion pounds of milk never makes it to market and is not processed to modern-day food processing standards. Also, a great deal of India's milk comes from water buffalos. Among individual countries, the U.S. stands second to India. If you look at the collective European Union, its 30 countries would rank higher than both India and the U.S., as it produced 160.4 million metric tons (353.7 billion pounds) last year.
What individual country produces the most milk from dairy cows?
That would be the U.S., which sent 93.5 million metric tons or 206.2 billion pounds to processing plants last year.
What are the world's top 10 milk-producing regions?
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the top 10 include (all numbers in million metric tons):
- The European Union, 160.4 million metric tons
- India, 141.7
- U.S., 93.5
- China, 42.5
- Pakistan, 40.0
- Brazil, 35.5
- Russia, 30.8
- New Zealand, 20.6
- Turkey, 19.5
- Argentina, 11.7
(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2015
June 15, 2015
