The National Safety Council always earmarks the third week in September as National Farm Safety and Health Week. The annual promotion was first an initiative by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 to remind the farm community to prioritize safety. As farm equipment has gotten much larger and farm practices have gotten much more complex,…
This time of year, fluid milk sales start to ramp back up after slipping back in June and July when schools let out for the summer. USDA reported its June fluid milk product sales a couple of weeks ago, with total June milk sales falling almost 300 million pounds, or 8.5%, from May to about…
Last week USDA announced July’s margin under the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) Program at $3.52 per hundredweight, the lowest margin on record since the program began in 2019. The margin fell another 13 cents from June’s low and is $6.40 below margins a year ago at this time. The DMC margin is reported each month…
July marked a turning point for our nation’s milk supply, with production down 0.5% from a year ago to 19.075 billion pounds, according to the USDA Milk Production Report released last week. This was the first year-over-year decline since May 2022 when production fell 0.4 percent. The decline comes after growth in the first half…
We were all sad to see Zach Myers leave our team last week to pursue a new opportunity working in member services with a regional dairy cooperative. Ironically, my first deep dive into milk markets and pricing came when I was working in member communications for another cooperative back in the early 2000s. One of…
The export market has not been as friendly to the U.S. this year as it has been over the last 5. From 2018 to 2022, 4 of the 5 years saw record export volumes (2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022), and 2 of those years, 2021 and 2022, also set record values. Just like in domestic…
We are more than halfway through our growing season here in Pennsylvania. It will not be too long until folks are gearing up to start chopping corn silage, followed by combining soybeans and corn. This growing season has not been without its challenges. Pennsylvania had a decent start to planting but then experienced the driest…
The June Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) margin was announced earlier this week at $3.65 per cwt. This sets a record low for the second consecutive month. It is also the first time in program history that triggers an indemnity at every available margin coverage, falling below the $4.00 per cwt catastrophic margin coverage that is…
At $14.91 per cwt, the Class III price dropped below the $15 mark for the first time in more than three years. The June price is $9.42 per cwt less than June 2022. With just a few days left in July, it is possible that July Class III will fall below $14, also for the…
The Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) feed cost has increased year-over-year since 2020. The DMC feed cost is calculated by summing the USDA announced average corn, soybean meal (SBM), and superior alfalfa hay prices, all on a hundredweight basis. The DMC program began in 2019, and the DMC feed price that year averaged $8.99 per cwt…
