Which Country Produces The Most Milk?

If you live in a location near farmland, you might be used to passing through empty fields filled with cows — and you might even roll down your windows and give them a 'moo' as you drive by. The milk that cows produce on dairy farms is the official drink of so many U.S. states, but have you ever considered which country produces the most milk? As it turns out, India is actually the top producer of milk worldwide (plus it also produces the most butter).

According to United States Department of Agriculture data, India produced 211.7 million metric tons of fluid milk in the 2024-2025 cycle. This staggering number represents 31% of the global market, more than the share of the European Union combined, which is only 22% (or 150.17 million metric tons). And while those cows out your car windows may convince you otherwise, the U.S. only produces 15% of the global supply of fluid milk. Diving deeper into the trends, India's 10-year average production is 189.05 million metric tons, and the amount has grown at a steady rate of 2% year over year.

Counted separately from fluid milk are nonfat dry milk and whole milk powder, which, interestingly, are more highly produced outside of India. Nonfat dry milk comes mostly from the European Union, which outputs 1.4 million metric tons of it. New Zealand holds the crown for highest whole milk powder production, with 1.42 million metric tons.

So how did India become the world's dairy giant, and how does the industry impact the country's inhabitants? While now the leading producer, India actually used to be a country in need of milk. In 1970, Operation Flood was started by Dr. Verghese Kurien as a dairy development program meant to increase milk production and farmers' income. 

From there, India's milk production has steadily increased. 211.7 million metric tons of milk produced means a lot of cows, and therefore lots of farmers. In India, there are 307 million cattle, and more specifically, there are over 61 million milk-producing cows. Additionally, most states in the country have bans on slaughtering cows because of the, "publicly acknowledged sentiment of the cow's sacrality" (via National Library of Medicine). 

Paired with the abundance of dairy-producing cows is the number of dairy farmers in the country. In India, there are around 70 million dairy farmers. Additionally, approximately one-third of the income in rural households is connected to the dairy industry. In comparison, as of the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, there were only around 9.3 million milk-producing cows and around 24,000 dairy farms in the United States. In the EU, the second-highest milk producer in the world, there are more than 650,000 dairy farmers (via European Parliament). While a higher number than recorded in the U.S., neither the States nor the EU come close to touching the production numbers coming out of India, whose rural population largely relies on dairy-related income.