Protecting Your Profits

The Center for Dairy Excellence offers several information resources to help producers identify opportunities to protect their profits. These documents are reviewed on a monthly “Protecting Your Profits” conference call. Click here to access the latest “Protecting Your Profits” Webinar.

Pennsylvania Dairy Industry Scorecard: The Center for Dairy Excellence publishes a monthly “PA Dairy Industry Performance Scorecard,” which looks at key factors supporting the growth of Pennsylvania’s dairy industry and evaluates trends affecting Pennsylvania’s dairy farms.

The national dairy herd increased 5,000 head in October from September and is 0.42 percent smaller than a year ago, down to 9.327 million.
The Pennsylvania dairy herd maintained 485,000 head of dairy cows for the fourth straight month, but is 6.0 percent less than last September.
Pennsylvania’s milking herd averaged 63.2 pounds per cow per day, up from 61.7 last October.
National production per cow was up to 72.0 pounds per day for milking cows, 1.81 percent more than last October. Increased per cow production drove the total U.S. milk production up to 18.105 billion pounds, up from 17.857 one year ago, representing and increase of 1.39 percent over last year.
October Pennsylvania milk production fell 6.2 percent from last October to 827 million pounds, representing 4.6 percent of national production
PA’s DHIA herd average fell to 21,778 pounds of milk with 1515 pounds of components. This is a 2.5 percent decrease in milk production and 1.5 percent decrease in components compared to last October.
The October milk margin at 75 pounds of milk was $13.99 per hundredweight, $2.31 higher than last year.
Somatic Cell counts of 213,230 are lower than October 2018 by 11.3 percent, and is the lowest October in at least the last 5 years.
The average days in milk on the typical Pennsylvania dairy was 179 days, up from 178 last October.
Pregnancy rates decreased to 16.6 percent from 17.8 percent last October. 11.0 percent of PA DHIA herds have a pregnancy rate greater than 29%, a decrease of 13.1 percent versus October 2018.
Average calving age is now 25.0 months, about 12 days shorter than four years ago.
DHIA cull rates are 38.2 percent, virtually the same as year ago values.

US Dairy Industry Scorecard: To provide an overview the national dairy industry, with consumption, marketing and production trends, the center publishes the monthly “US Dairy Industry Performance” scorecard.

The September All Milk Price was $19.30 per hundredweight, 15.57 percent better than September 2018.
October butter stocks were up 3.04 percent over October 2018
October cheese stocks were down 2.03 percent from October 2018
September powder stocks were down 3.15 percent compared to September 2018
DMC enrollment for 2020 began October 7 and will end on December 6, 2020
September DMC margin is $10.41/cwt, the second month this year not to trigger an indemnity at any margin coverage
October dairy cow slaughter was 0.73 percent below last year.
CME butter prices are 9.28 percent lower than last October.
Federal order Cheddar Cheese prices are 28.93 percent above last October.
U.S. dairy export value in September was 16.62 percent higher than September 2018 at over $501 million.

Zach Myers, the center’s risk education manager, reviews both of these scorecards monthly during his “Protecting Your Profits” calls. The calls are held the last Wednesday of every month. Click here to access a recording of the latest call.