While dairy prices are slowly moderating higher from the very low levels we witnessed this summer, a cooling demand for dairy globally continues to burden the marketplace. Much of this is due to worldwide inflation and uncertainty in countries traditionally importing a lot of dairy. The pandemic hit China harder than other regions of the…
Declining butter stocks are helping to contribute to a recent increase in the Class IV milk futures prices on the CME. Butter inventories were down 40.3 million pounds, or about 12 percent, from July to 289.1 mil. lbs at the end of August. That is the largest August decline in inventories since 2015. Butter stocks…
Milk prices are starting to rebound from the devastating lows we saw this summer. October’s Class I milk price was announced last week at $19.47 per hundredweight, up 57 cents from September and $2.85 above August’s low point. However, it’s still more than $3 below the Class I price a year ago. Looking ahead, CME…
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…
