Germany is the largest EU milk producer - with an output of around 31.9 million tons of cows’ milk in 2022. Other large EU milk producers were France with around 24.1 million tons and the Netherlands with 13.9 million tons. In 2022, the EU milk production reached 144.9 million tons (no data for Luxembourg). Compared with the previous year, the production increased by 0.2%.
For many years the EU milk market was regulated by a quota system, which was first introduced in 1984 to avoid excessive levels of production. In the early 1980s surplus production had lead to what became known as milk lakes and butter mountains. The reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) lead to the quota being abolished on 1st April 2015. Since then European Union dairy farms can decide on production levels independently.
Last update: 18.10.2023. More detailed data on EU milk production or the number of EU dairy cows can be found in the Eurostat database.