Kategorie: News

In Germany one of the biggest discounters Aldi has made an agreement with suppliers of cow milk to pay during the coming six months with five eurocent per litre more. A few weeks earlier German dairy farmers with tractors have across the country blocked several distribution centers of the discounter Aldi because Aldi announced to lower the consumer price of dairy products.

The southern German dairy cooperative Berchtesgadener Land is since January paying two eurocent per kilogram milk less for milk from cows that are year round housed in stanchion barns. This because this milk does no longer fit in the marketing of the dairy.

In Germany in 2019 a volume of 1184742 tonnes organic cow milk was supplied from farms to dairies. This was 6.0 percent more than in 2018. In dairies the production of organic drink milk increased 6.5 percent, the production of organic cheese increased 6.8 percent but the production of organic butter fell 11.5 percent.

In Germany a study of the LALLF M-V shows that dairy cows often take in much more copper than is needed. Lactating cows have average a daily demand of 230 milligrams copper in their ration. 

The biggest German dairy cooperative DMK has sold its daughter company Sanotact to the German Flotte Holding. Sanotact is is with around 200 employees producing a broad spectrum: from functional confectionery, especially glucose and breath mints, to food supplements. The sale is another step to focus more on dairy products, according DMK.

The German umbrella organization of nationwide 135 organizations of dairy producers Bayern MeG has called on dairy farmers to do everything possible to decrease the volume of milk production because there is a surplus of milk already and the surplus threatens to grow because of the corona crisis. Also dairy cooperatives ask their members to decrease their milk production. The German organization of dairy farmers BDM calls for the implementation of a temporary reduction in milk deliveries.

In Germany, after two years of increasing the sales of organic milk with 18 and 19 percent, in 2019 the sales increased six percent.

The Belgian organization of dairy processors have warned dairy farmers not to increase their milk production because the market might overflow. This because of Covid 19 there is almost no demand of dairy products from the hotel and catering sector.

In Holland the number of youngstock per dairy cow has gone down from 0.82 head in 2015 to 6.4 head in 2018, according to Wageningen University & Research. This is mainly caused by the new phosphate policy of the Dutch government. With a certain phosphate quota with less youngstock a farm can keep more dairy cows.

In Holland, despite the by dairies obliged combat of Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) and Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) on dairy farms, ultimo 2019 the IBR-free status of dairy farms was 75 percent and two percent less than one year before. Regarding BVD was ultimo 2019 73 percent of the dairy farm non-suspicious, three percent more than one year before.

In Holland research of Wageningen University & Research on several farms shows that the methane emission between cows in one herd can vary more than the difference between herds. Of the difference between cows in a herd 32 percent was depending on days in lactation and the number of the lactation.

In Holland dairies and milk processing companies have agreed that in a case milk processing locations are not able to process the supplied milk, for example because of too many employees are infected with corona, that milk will be redirected to other plants from other dairies or companies that will process this milk.

In Holland, almost fifty dairy farmers that were farming under special conditions of the caring dairy program and were delivering their milk to the dairy cooperative Royal FrieslandCampina for further delivering to Ben & Jerry’s had to stop producing this milk because RFC and B&J did not continue their cooperation. One of the reasons is that because of brexit B&J is collecting and processing more milk in Great Britain. Another Dutch dairy cooperative Cono will continue delivering milk to B&J.

As first in Holland the dairy cooperative Cono is producing cheese (Beemster Cheese) climate neutral. Annual Cono processes 400 million kilogram milk from 440 dairy farms. Of this farms 30 percent is generating electricity by solar and wind.

In Holland average margin of dairy farms doubled in 2019 from two to four euro per 100 kilogram milk, according to the accountancy company Abab.

Irish milk production is growing and will probably continue to grow. In February milk production was 7.8 percent higher than in February 2019. At the end of March the number of dairy calves born was almost 55000 head or six per cent higher than in the same period in 2019.