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.

• The number of cows on Pennsylvania dairy farms fell from 531,000 in January 2014 to 530,000 last January, but these cows are producing 2 lbs of milk more per day. This caused Pennsylvania’s rolling herd average to increase for the ninth consecutive month to a record 21,931.
• 1/4 of these herds averaged more than 1,650 pounds of total protein and butterfat production per cow.
• The Pennsylvania All Milk Price fell 25% to $18.60 while January’s margins were 42% lower than last year.

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.

• The Margin Protection Program actual margin for the month of January is estimated to be $8.01, drastically down from the November/December margin of $13.49. The final January/February MPP margin will be annouced in March.
• Cow numbers are slowly increasing to above 9.3 million for the first time since January 2009, but this number is only 0.7% over three year average.
• January slaughter numbers are equal to January 2014 and not significantly different than previous January’s.
• Average U.S.per cow production increased 2 lb/hd over the past 3 years.
• Butter inventories are comparable to last year, but cheese is building slightly and powder stocks are at the highest level of any December on record, resulting in the low present day Class IV prices.
• Exports fell to 13.5% of total U.S. production in December but 2014 annual exports totaled 15.4% of the total milk solids produced in the United States. This annual value is almost identical to 2013’s 15.5% of milk solids production.
• CME cheese prices are trading at 2012 levels, around $1.55 this spring. 20 percent under the three year average.

Alan 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.