BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 19. Production of processed fluid milk and cream amounted to 235,300 tons in the first five months of 2022, which is 7 percent less than a year earlier, Trend reports with reference to Energyprom.kz monitoring agency.
According to the agency, this is the first decline in the same period after 6 years of continuous growth.
Half of the whole production of milk and cream fell only in the North Kazakhstan (75,700 tons) and Almaty (44,200 tons) regions. Significant production volumes were also recorded in Akmola (34,200 tons) and Kostanay (28,500 tons) regions.
According to the results of 4M2022, domestic dairies provided demand (sales on the domestic market plus export) for milk and cream by 95.9 percent.
Production in this period amounted to 189,500 tons – 6 percent less than a year earlier, while imports increased by 4.2 percent or to 8,100 tons.
The share of imported milk and cream increased from 3.7 percent to 4.1 percent of the country’s milk resources.
The volume of sales in the domestic market decreased by 3.7 percent (to 192,000 tons), while exports fell by almost half (to 5,600 tons).
Drinking milk prices increased by 2.4 percent in June of 2022 over the month, by 17.2 percent since the beginning of 2022 and by 21.5 percent over the year.
Annual price growth was only 9.5 percent last year.
Raw milk consumption averaged 3.5 liters per capita in 1Q2022, 5 percent less than in the same period in 2021.
Consumption of cream has increased by 1.5 times, but only up to 47 milliliters on average per capita.
The volume of milk consumption varies between the country’s regions. Milk consumption in urban areas was 1.73 liters of raw milk on average per capita in 1Q2022, and in rural areas - 6.04 liters at once.
The difference is not so great in terms of cream consumption - 41 milliliters on average per capita in rural areas, and 51 milliliters in urban areas.