World dairy trends in spotlight in industry get-together

At first sight, South Korea seems an unlikely venue for the 50 or so member countries of the International Dairy Federation, yet its dairy industry has made remarkable progress in recent decades.

Some 60 years ago in the aftermath of the Korean War, recognising the importance of milk in the human diet, the Government encouraged the dairy industry to increase output through a livestock promotion policy. The demand for milk and milk products grew and, according to the IDF’s report The World Dairy Situation 2018, South Korea is now one of the leading dairying countries in East Asia.

Meanwhile, encouraged by profitable milk prices, milk production continued to grow in the rest of the world during 2017/18.

It was reported that after the financially difficult years of 2015 and 2016, dairy farmers around the world were eager to improve their balance sheets resulting in world production increasing by over two per cent. However, not all countries did better including some of the heavyweights such as Australia.

The UK was among those countries that took advantage of better prices whereas Germany and France, for example, were slow to respond.

The EU is responsible for 25 per cent of world milk production from its 23 million cows. Within the EU, Germany is the largest producer responsible for 21 per cent of EU milk, followed by France at 16 per cent. The UK is third with 10per cent, just ahead of the Netherlands.

The USA remains the largest producer in the world with some 14 per cent of world output, closely followed by India. It you add the fact that 70 per cent of world production of buffalo milk also comes from India, then India is the world’s largest milk producer.

There was some slightly less positive news on consumption in that in the Western world, 2017 marked the end of the boom years of butter and cheese consumption.

Asia has taken over as the new engine of cheese consumption with growth in China and the Republic of Korea being the main players.

The world’s growing interest in plant-based drinks (as in the UK) together with the ongoing drift to fermented drinks, meant that liquid milk consumption remained stagnant. However, cheese is the only product where demand consistently grows across all major markets around the world.

While those 50 dairying countries shared information and experiences, South Korea’s five thousand or so dairy farmers, with an average herd size of 62 cows, went about their business.

Although the industry there has developed well, it has not been without its problems. Foot and mouth disease had to be overcome, and an imbalance of production and demand led to market controls, and now the Korean Milk Marketing Board and quotas control the market.

John Sumner is an independent dairy specialist