# Milk & dairy: Stocks

How butter mountains and powder stocks buffer the market

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/stocks/

What this tab covers How much is left and how much is held. For minerals and energy: reserves, current output, years of supply and recycling for the top five countries. For farm commodities: production, ending stocks and stocks-to-use for the top five producers (USDA, October 2026). It also covers inventories and stockpiles.

#### Top five producers: production and stocks (USDA, 2026)

| Country | Production | Share | Ending stocks | Stocks-to-use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| **India** | 221,400 | 31.7% | 0 | 0% |
| **European Union** | 154,200 | 22.1% | 0 | 0% |
| **United States** | 107,300 | 15.4% | 0 | 0% |
| **China** | 41,810 | 6% | 0 | 0% |
| **Russia** | 33,900 | 4.9% | 0 | 0% |
| **World** | 697,800 | 100% | 0 | – |

 thousand t. Stocks-to-use = ending stocks ÷ (domestic use + exports) for countries, ÷ world use for the world. Source: USDA FAS PSD database, October 2026 release.

#### Stockholding and policy

Dairy is not recycled. Stocks are held as storable products: world skim milk powder ending stocks are forecast at 469,000 t in 2026, about 10% of a year's output, and butter stocks at 235,000 t, about 2% (USDA PSD). India holds skim milk powder (34,000 t forecast for end-2026) through dairies drying surplus flush-season milk, not through a formal buffer norm; it has no public dairy reserve like FCI's grain stocks. The EU can buy butter and SMP into public intervention storage when prices fall to set levels.

Raw milk cannot be stored, so stocks exist as butter, cheese and milk powders. Powders and butter keep for months and act as the market's buffer. The EU has long used public intervention buying of skim milk powder and butter, building stocks in surplus years and selling them later. Cheese ages in warehouses, so inventory is a normal part of that business. The herd is the slow-moving stock: heifers take about two years to start milking, so supply responds sluggishly.

## Other sections

- [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/index.md)
- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/overview/index.md)
- [Correlation](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/correlation/index.md)
- [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/extraction/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/production/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/cycles/index.md)
- [Trading](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/trading/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/movement/index.md)
- [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/criticality/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/dairy/links/index.md)