Dairy Information: 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 Performance 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.

  • Pennsylvania’s rolloing herd average increased for the eighth consecutive month to a record 21,852. These cows averaged 3.3% more milk per head compared to December 2013. The herd remained at 530,000 cows, so total production also grew by 3.3%.
  • The Pennsylvania All Milk Price fell 11.1% to $21.60.
  • December’s feed cost cost per cwt of milk is 7.9% more than December 2013 and margins were 15.2% lower than last year.
  • The state average days in milk increased by two days compared to last year as high milk prices encouraged producers to keep cows longer.

Protecting Your Profits Scorecard:To provide an overview of the national dairy industry, with consumption, marketing and production trends, the center publishes the monthly “Protecting Your Profits” scorecard.

  • CME butter prices are trading at January 2014 levels- $0.10 over the 3 year average.
  • CME cheese prices are at February 2013- $0.25 under the average price for the past 3 years.
  • CME nonfat dry milk prices are trading at international markets levels but CME cheese and butter prices are still well above their international price.
  • U.S. cow numbers have slowly climbed to April 2009 levels.
  • The September / October 2014 Margin Protection Program Margin is an all time high of $15.53. November’s preliminary margin fell to $13.81.

Alan'-photo-colorAlan Zepp, the center’s risk management program 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.