The Vision of the Center for Dairy Excellence is to “Serve as a catalyst for a vibrant Pennsylvania Dairy Industry,” while the Mission is to “Empower and support Pennsylvania dairy families and businesses to thrive.” To help meet our Vision and Mission, the Center for Dairy Excellence opens its grant programs each fall to dairy…
There have been a lot of developments in the dairy industry as it relates to relief payments and changes to the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program. On Tuesday, September 14, the Center hosted a Dairy Industry Conference Call to discuss these developments and answer participants’ questions. Paul Bleiberg, Senior Vice President of Government Relations at…
Milk production has grown tremendously this year. Every month through July has experienced year-over-year (YOY) growth. Through July, 3.41 billion more pounds of milk have been produced on U.S. dairy farms compared to 2020 after adjusting for 2020 leap year. This is a 2.6% increase in milk production compared to the first 7 months of…
The Coronavirus Pandemic certainly made its mark on the U.S. dairy industry last year, and it continues to influence dairy markets even now. The result of business shutdowns and stay-at-home requests by local, state, and federal governments had mixed results on dairy sales. When food service, a major user of cheese and butter products, was…
As we approach harvest season and have a better idea of what yields will look like, USDA starts estimating yields based on actual survey results. The Aug. 12 Crop Production report is the first estimate this year to use actual corn survey data to estimate yields. As with every year, different parts of the U.S….
Milk price has been extremely volatile over the last year and a half, making it very difficult across the Northeast for dairy farmers to know what they will be paid for their milk. One bright spot over that same period is exports. Without the volume of exports that have left U.S. borders since March 2020,…
It is never a good thing when milk price falls and feed commodity prices increase. This has been the case for most of 2021. When milk price has managed to increase, feed costs have risen enough to offset it. When feed prices have managed to decrease, the milk price has fallen enough to continue to…
The July 26, USDA Crop Progress report shows that the corn crop across the country is progressing on par with last year and, in general, on par with the five-year average: 79% of the U.S. corn crop is silking, which is the same as last year but slightly above the five-year average of 73%. Pennsylvania,…
In the two and half years I have been working in the Pennsylvania dairy industry, Pennsylvania has lost over 12% of its dairy farms, but the herd size of those remaining has increased by 6% to 89 cows per dairy in 2020. This does not sound like much of a herd size increase, but it…
Over the last 10 to 15 years, “sustainability” has become a hot topic. However, the definition of sustainability may be different depending on the individual asked. A simple definition prior to 15 years ago might have been the ability to maintain something at a certain rate, or for a dairy farmer, sustainability may be the…
