June 8, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

USDA announced the May Class III price at $25.21 per hundredweight, up 79 cents from April and $6.25 above a year-ago levels. May’s Class III price was the highest so far this year and was the  first month that the Class III price was higher than the Class IV price. May’s Class IV price was…

June 1, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

The April all-milk price was announced at $27.10 per cwt., up $1.20 from March and $8.70 above last April’s price. It was the highest all-milk price announced since the USDA Dairy Margin  Program was established in 2019. Feed costs were also higher this month, with the corn price at $7.08 per bushel, up 52 cents…

May 25, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

Both total cheese stocks and butter stocks were up from a month ago in April, according to the latest USDA Cold Storage Report. Total natural cheese stocks on April 30 were 1.4807 billion  pounds, up 1 percent from March and 2 percent from a year ago. Total cheese stocks set a new record high for…

May 18, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

US milk production is down 1 percent from a year ago to 19.15 million pounds, with 98,000 fewer cows. Milk production per cow was flat from a year ago. California’s milk production was down  0.6 percent, while Wisconsin’s was down 0.1 percent. Idaho was flat from a year ago, while New York was down 0.8…

May 11, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

According to the USDA Crop Progress Report, spring planting of corn and soybeans is well behind last year and the five-year average (2017 – 2021). The top 18 states in corn production only have  22 percent, on average, of the 2021 acreage planted. This is well behind 2021’s level, which was 64 percent at this…

May 4, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

The March Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) margin was announced as $11.55 per hundredweight. This is a 57 cents per cwt improvement from February and becomes the fourth straight month not  to trigger an indemnity at any margin coverage. Feed costs continued to increase relative to February, but milk price increased enough to offset rising feed…

April 27, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

According to the latest USDA Cold Storage report, natural cheese stocks were down 0.7 percent from a year ago to 1.458 billion pounds in March, down 0.6 percent from February, marking the  first time since 2011 that stocks fell from February to March. Still, this was the second largest March inventory ever reported. American cheese…

April 20, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

Total milk production in the US was down 0.5 percent to 18.812 billion pounds in March, with 68,000 fewer head of dairy cows and 7 pounds more milk per cow per day. While milk production  was still below last year’s levels, the gap did narrow in March from the 1.5-percent peak in January. Of the…

April 13, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

Recent data released by the USDA’s Economic Research Service shows US farm profitability increasing 25 percent in 2021 to an estimated $119.1 billion, with higher cash receipts in 2021  offsetting the high government payments received in 2020. Farm profitability levels, or net farm income, is expected to decline 4.5 percent in 2022 due to increased…

April 6, 2022: Dairy Week In Review

USDA’s Ag Prices report put the February All-Milk price at $24.70 per cwt., up 50 cents from January and $7.60 above year-ago levels. However, it was not enough to offset the increase in feed  prices, with the corn price up 53 cents from last month to $6.10 per bushel and the soybean price up $59.75…