June 8 (Reuters) - Following is a profile of the European Union dairy sector, its production of milk and related products:
Milk is made of fats, proteins, other solids and water.
It is consumed as milk, or converted through processes such as separation, combination and compression into a variety of dairy products and ingredients: creams, butters, skimmed and whole milk powders, yoghurts, cheese and whey.
Milk production is the main farming activity in almost all EU countries individually and also in the 27-member bloc, where it accounts for nearly a fifth of total farm output value.
By far the largest amount of milk produced in the EU comes from cows; the "old" EU-15 group still accounts for more than 80 percent of this. Some southern EU countries like Greece and Cyprus also produce significant amounts from sheep and goats.
All EU countries produce milk, to varying extents. But the bulk of the EU's output of cow's milk comes from just a few countries -- Germany and France are by far the largest producers at around 21 and 17 percent respectively -- with Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland trailing some way behind.
These six countries provide more than 70 percent of EU milk.
The share of milk in a country's overall dairy output varies widely, roughly between 6 and 33 percent. It tends to be higher in northern Europe, especially in Estonia and Finland, and below 10 percent in Mediterranean countries like Greece and Spain.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
In terms of milk usage, cheese and butter were the most significant production outlets for cow's milk delivered to EU dairies in 2007, the last full year for which figures are available. Each accounts for some 30 percent of utilised milk.
Fresh drinking milk and cream took up 13 percent apiece. Whole and skimmed milk powders, and other fresh dairy products like yoghurts and milk-based drinks, are also important.
Cow's milk is marketed in the European Union on the basis of production quotas. Each country receives two quotas, one for delivery to dairies, by far the larger amount and set at around 140 million tonnes. The other is for direct sales to consumers.
Under the quota system, collection of cow's milk across the European Union has been fairly stable since the mid-1990s. In 2007, for example, the volume was around 132 million tonnes.
Cheese and cream production has risen over the last 15 years or so, whereas that of butter has fallen -- especially since 2003 -- and also of skimmed milk powder, a residual product.
Imports from non-EU countries are relatively limited, mainly because the products are perishable. Traditionally, they have mostly come from Switzerland and New Zealand.
GRASSLAND, STALLS Europe has two possible modes of milk production.
Cows can be placed on grazing land -- grassland that must be sufficiently productive; or kept in stalls, which needs either arable land to produce fodder or concentrated feed like cereals. Feed can also be imported from other regions or countries.
This flexibility explains why the number of dairy cows is not necessarily linked to a country's proportion of grassland.
In southern and eastern Ireland and France's Basse-Normandie region, for example, the high percentage of grassland corresponds with a large number of dairy cows. But in Brittany, cow numbers are similar despite a lower percentage of grassland.
There are also regions that have a lot of grassland with lower numbers of dairy cows.
In drier regions, like Portugal's Alentejo and the Italian island of Sardinia, where grazing land is not particularly rich, it is primarily used for sheep and goats.
Elsewhere, grasslands are mostly used by beef cattle - regions such as Scotland, Andalucia in southern Spain and the Burgundy region in France, for example.
Europe's most productive regions for milk include:
- around Prague, in the Czech Republic
- most of the Netherlands
- the Azores Islands off mainland Portugal
- Belgium: east and west Flanders, Antwerp
- Germany: Schwaben and Weser-Ems
- Brittany, in France
- Lombardy, in Italy
For a story on the decline of Britain's dairy sector see [ID:nL813531] (Writing by Jeremy Smith, Editing by Peter Blackburn)