Class III and IV milk futures prices saw their first significant rally this year coming off the heels of a lackluster USDA Milk Production Report that showed total milk production was essentially flat in the U.S. in 2023. For the month of December, total milk production was down 0.3% from a year ago to 18.843…
Last week Rob Goodling from Horizon Farm Credit joined me for our “Protecting Your Profits” Webinar to share highlights from the 2023 Annual Performance Indicator Review compiled from Pennsylvania dairy herds participating in Horizon and Penn State’s benchmark programs last year. The review looked at 17 dairy performance indicators that could help your dairy farm…
Have you ever had to go to a grocery store right before a snowstorm? Anytime there is more than an inch of snow forecasted, it seems like everyone and their brother rushes there to buy the essentials for their household – bread, eggs, milk, toilet paper – whatever they perceive they can’t do without in…
USDA announced the November margin under its Dairy Margin Coverage Program last week. With feed costs falling 4 cents from October and the all-milk price up 10 cents, the November margin was announced at $9.58 per cwt., up 14 cents from October and the highest margin in 2023. The November margin is eight cents above…
USDA isn’t announcing the December Class III and Class IV milk prices until Thursday of this week, but Class III went off the CME board at $16.08 per hundredweight while Class IV went off at $19.19 per cwt. If these prices hold true, that will mean the Class III milk price averaged $17.02 per cwt…
Last week was a great week for both our dairy industry and for school children across the country. That’s because the U.S. House of Representatives passed the “Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act” with a resonating 330-99 bipartisan margin. This measure, which was led by Reps. GT Thompson and Kim Schrier, will increase the varieties…
Warren Buffet once said that “risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” While that statement seems blunt, it is true. In dairy farming, there is no way we can possibly predict every missed opportunity, every catastrophe, and every hardship we’ll face in any given year. We simply must navigate our business through the unpredictable…
USDA announced the October margin under the Dairy Margin Coverage Program at $9.44 per hundredweight, just six cents under the maximum $9.50 margin coverage level. It’s up 10 cents from September’s margin and the highest this year. It is still $1.27 below margins from a year ago and will result in an indemnity payment of…
Just before Thanksgiving and just in time, Congress passed a stop-gap funding bill that averted a government shutdown. That bill also included language to extend the current Farm Bill, which was established in 2018, until October 2024. With Farm Bill legislation set to renew every five years, House and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairs Glenn Thompson…
Dairy farm families are seeing an improvement in their milk checks right now over the devasting low prices they received this summer. September’s all-milk price was announced at $21 per hundredweight, up nearly $4 from July’s low of $17.40. October’s all-milk price is expected to continue to increase, with the October Class IV price at…
