IFCN: By 2030, milk shortage will be 6 million tons

Catherine Fredrich noted in her report that recent events in the world, such as high inflation rates, disruptions in dairy supply chains due to the war in Ukraine and economic problems in China, as well as unfavorable weather conditions, have contributed to the rise in poverty. This ultimately led to a decrease in purchasing power and high costs of dairy products.

“Between 2022 and 2023, prices for dairy products increased in 80% of the world’s countries. Developed countries, which produce a surplus of dairy products to meet some countries' deficits, reduced milk production by 0.3% in 2023. And, if this trend continues, by 2030 a milk shortage is expected throughout the world. Developed countries are showing surpluses, but this trend will stabilize until 2030, and we expect an increase of only 8 million tons. And developing regions will increase their deficit by 14 million tons. This means that there will be more deficit than surplus, and the difference between them will be large,” the expert said.

IFCN's senior dairy economist in her report also shared forecasts for the future of the dairy industry if the situation does not change.

“By 2030, we believe developing regions will increase their demand by 140 million tons. This is due to the fact that, on the one hand, there is a population growth, and on the other, there is an increase in the demand for dairy products per capita, mainly due to the growth of the middle class, whose demand for dairy products is growing more and more every day. Dairy production is also expected to increase by 126 million tons, but this will not be enough to cover demand, hence we will have a deficit of 14 million tons. This will be partially compensated by the surplus of developed regions, but only by 8 million tons. Ultimately, we expect a shortage of 6 million tons of milk if additional milk surpluses are not created or activated in developing countries,” explained Katrin Fredrich in her report.