The center publishes market and industry information regularly to help dairy producers and industry stakeholders stay informed and make better business decisions. This section includes the latest information published by the Center for Dairy Excellence.
Dairy Information
DAIRY WEEK IN REVIEW
March 20, 2019: Dairy Week in Review
USDA’s Milk Production Report shows US milk production up 0.2 percent year-over-year to 17 billion pounds in February, the smallest year-over-year gain in milk production since 2016. The increase was driven entirely by a 1 percent increase in milk production per cow, while cow numbers fell 77,000 head from a year ago to 9.359 million head. Read More
MARKETS & MANAGEMENT UPDATE
March 22, 2019: Declining Farm Numbers
Dairy farm numbers have been falling for at least the last five years. Production has not followed the same trend. While farm numbers are declining, the average herd size and production per cow is increasing enough to make up for the loss of dairies. Read More
CENTER FOCUS COLUMN
Going Beyond Our Boundaries
In dairy, fluid milk sales are a hot topic right now. There is a lot of concern, rightfully so, about declining fluid milk sales. The USDA released its Estimated Fluid Milk Products Sales Report in February, fluid milk sales fell 2 percent in 2018 to 47.1 billion pounds. In fact, for the past eight years, fluid milk sales have declined dramatically, falling 14 percent from 2010 to 2018.
With the US total milk production just under 215.5 billion pounds, according to the latest USDA Milk Production Report, domestic fluid milk sales absorbed about 22 percent of the milk produced in the nation last year. So, it’s easy to understand why people are concerned about declining fluid milk sales. However, maybe we all need to think about milk a little bit differently.
