Market for milk and dairy products at the turn of the year 2021-22 The global rise in prices for butter and skimmed milk powder in the second half of 2021 ultimately also led to increases in milk prices. The reason for the price increases are reduced milk deliveries in the leading production areas, above all New Zealand as the world's largest export nation of dairy products and the EU-27 in second place. With levels of self-sufficiency of 112% for butter, 114% for cheese, 172% for whole milk powder and 215% for skimmed milk powder, the EU-27 has a considerable price dependency on export revenues on the world market. For the year 2022 , the US Department of Agriculture has forecast in its six-monthly forecast that the milk market will be more scarce worldwide. Production in major countries around the world is expected to increase by less than 1% on average. As early as autumn 2021, milk deliveries fell by around 2% compared to the same months of the previous year.In contrast, global consumption increases in 2022 between 1.6% and 3.5% for the individual dairy products are forecast. In New Zealand milk production and processing will stagnate or decline slightly in 2022. In the USA , too, the dairy industry is expected to change only marginally. For the world's largest production area, the EU-27 , the EU Commission estimates a moderate increase of 0.6% compared to the previous year. In the other major production areas of the world, only minor changes are expected. In contrast, significantly higher growth rates are expected on the consumption side. Global butter consumption is expected to increase by around 2.4%, cheese consumption by 1.6% and the use of milk powder to grow between 2.3% and 3.5%. In almost all product areas, especially milk powder, the increasing import demand from China plays the decisive role.25% of EU exports of dairy products go to China and another 15% to the Middle East. 15% of milk products are delivered to Great Britain; most of it comes from Ireland. The rest is spread over many small importing states. Since New Zealand's exports tend to decline, the EU-27 will be the most productive exporting country in 2022. The forward prices for milk and dairy products on the Chicago Stock Exchange will be 6% to 8% higher for the first half of 2022 than in the past year.
