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…
For most dairy farm families, the days when the milk price you receive is based primarily on what supply and demand looks like in your backyard are long gone. In today’s marketplace, the mailbox price you receive each month is determined by national and international factors influencing both the demand and the supply side of…
USDA announced the September 2023 margin under the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) Program at $8.44 per hundredweight (cwt.), up $1.98 from August and the highest for 2023. While it still resulted in an indemnity payment of $1.06 per cwt., or about $830 per each one million pounds covered at the maximum $9.50 level, the margin…
Each week this page includes a report on the average basis dairy producers can expect to see in their milk check each month, based on historical trends from the past 5 years. What’s published here is the average for the region, but your basis is unique to your individual farm operation. It’s basically the difference…
Two major reports come out around this time each month that together present a good picture of what could influence dairy markets in the near term. Those are the USDA Milk Production Report and Cold Storage Report. When milk production is growing and stocks reported in the Cold Storage report are declining, it means dairy…
The price we receive in our milk check each month is only part of the equation that determines profitability on the farm. The prices we pay for our inputs – like feed, seed, fertilizer, fuel, and other supplies – can also have a major impact on our margin. Feed costs, including the cost of purchased…
