Milk is a nutritious white liquid food produced by mammalian mammary gland. It is the main source of nutrition for infant mammals (including those who are breastfed) before digesting other types of food. Early lactation milk contains colostrum, colostrum will carry the mother's antibodies, thus reducing the risk of many diseases. It contains many other nutrients, including protein and lactose. Interspecific consumption of milk is not uncommon, especially in humans, many of whom consume milk from other mammals.

As an agricultural product, milk (also known as milk) is extracted from farm animals during or shortly after pregnancy. In 2011, the dairy farm produced 730 million tons of milk from 260 million cows. India is the world's largest milk producer and a major exporter of skimmed milk powder, but it rarely exports other dairy products. The growing domestic demand for dairy products and the huge gap between supply and demand may lead India to become a net importer of dairy products in the future. New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands are the largest exporters of dairy products. China and Russia are the world's largest importers of milk and dairy products. Until 2016, the two countries achieved self-sufficiency, contributing to the world's milk surplus.

More than six billion people worldwide consume milk and dairy products. More than 750 million people live in dairy farmers.

In many cultures, especially in the west, humans continue to consume milk as food from milk other than babies, especially cows, goats and sheep. Initially, the ability to digest milk was limited to children, because adults do not produce lactase, an enzyme necessary to digest lactose in milk. As a result, milk is converted into curds, cheese and other products to reduce lactose content. Thousands of years ago, occasional mutations spread across the European population, producing lactase in adulthood. This mutation allows milk to be used as a new source of nutrition and to sustain the population when problems arise with other food sources. Milk is processed into a variety of products, such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir, ice cream and cheese. Modern industrial processes use milk to produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, milk powder and many other food additives and industrial products.

There is a high content of saturated fat in whole milk, butter and cream. Sugar lactose is found only in milk, forsythia and some tropical shrubs. The enzyme needed to digest lactose, lactase, reaches its highest level in the human small intestine after birth and then begins to decline slowly, unless milk is consumed regularly. Those who do continue to tolerate milk often use the milk of domesticated ungulates (including cattle, sheep, goats, cattle, buffaloes, horses, reindeer and camels). India is the world's largest producer and consumer of cow and buffalo milk

By definition, all female mammals can produce milk, but milk dominates commercial production. FAO estimates that 85% of all milk in the world came from cows in 2011. Human milk is not produced or distributed industrially or commercially; however, the breast milk bank collects donated breast milk and redistributes it to infants who may benefit from breast milk for a variety of reasons (premature, allergic, metabolic, etc.) but are unable to breastfeed.

In the western world, milk is produced on an industrial scale and is the most common form of milk consumption so far. Commercial dairy farming using automatic milking equipment produces the vast majority of milk in developed countries. Cows like Holstein have been selectively raised to increase milk production. About 90% of the cows in the United States and 85% in the United Kingdom are Holstein cows. Other cows in the United States include Ayrshire, brown Switzerland, Guernsey, Jersey and dairy shorthorn.

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