Milk production closely tracks overall food production across countries
Comparing Food — Gross Production Value (constant 2014-2016 thousand I$) with Milk, Total — Gross Production Value (constant 2014-2016 thousand I$) across 164 countries, 2022–2024.
- Rank correlation
- +0.82
- Holding size constant
- +0.57
- Countries compared
- 164
- Period
- 2022–2024
What might link these
Milk production may rise with agricultural development or dietary shifts, but GDP and population likely drive both indicators. A careful reader should note that food production includes many items beyond milk.
Why this is not proof of anything
This is a correlation across countries, not an experiment. It cannot show that either indicator causes the other, and both may simply follow a third thing. The partial correlation remains high, but residual confounding by unmeasured factors like agricultural policy or climate could inflate the link.
The second figure above repeats the measurement with national population and income held constant. It is the more conservative number: a relationship that largely disappears there was mostly telling you that larger, richer countries have more of most things.
How this was measured
Both indicators were ranked across every country reporting each, and the two rankings compared — ranks rather than raw values, because a handful of very large countries can otherwise manufacture a relationship on their own. The calculation is arithmetic over figures already published on this site; the commentary above is drafted from the two indicator names and the resulting coefficients.