According to the US Labor Department’s latest report, the job economy is starting to get weaker. Hiring fell to 114,000 jobs in July, with the unemployment rate increasing to 4.3 percent, the highest since October 2021. Hourly wages are up 3.6 percent year-overyear, the smallest increase since May 2021. The average hourly earnings for all…
June’s DMC margin closed out at $11.66 per hundredweight (cwt), $2.16 per cwt. above the $9.50 coverage level. Like the previous three months, the margin remained high enough to not trigger indemnities. June’s margin jumped $1.14 from May’s margin of $10.52 per cwt. Looking back to program year 2023, there’s an $8.01 increase from June…
Looking at June’s NASS Cold Storage report, butter stocks, in all warehouses, came in at 373,546,000 pounds, which was down 2% month over month and up 7% year over year. From December 2023 to May 2024, butter stocks trended upward from 199,530,000 pounds to 379,750,000 pounds. June 2024 butter stocks were approximately 50% lower than…
The cycling of the seasons constantly brings on variations in the weather and activities on and off the farm. Along with this cycling of weather and activities come health and safety risks to keep in mind. In this article, I share practical information to keep everyone healthy and safe on the farm this summer.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s that milk prices are volatile. And in recent years, that volatility has picked up steam. Though we are now several years removed from the COVID-19 pandemic, the extreme price movements that were a hallmark of 2020 and 2021 are still present in today’s markets. While the first half…
Anyone who grew up on a dairy farm knows the value of developing a strong work ethic at an early age. When I was younger, I remember complaining because we had to get up before school to milk the cows or because we had to milk right after we got home. Looking back now, though,…
May’s Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) margin closed out at $10.52 per hundredweight (cwt), $1.02 over the $9.50 maximum coverage level and did not trigger indemnities at any coverage level. May’s margin jumped 92 cents per cwt from April’s margin at $9.60. Year-over-year, May’s margin shot up from 2023, when it was at $4.83 per cwt…
A young girl had her mouth and throat burned when she drank pipeline cleaner in the milkhouse. She thought it was Kool-Aid. A man was badly injured when his ragged coat sleeve was caught in a power take-off shaft. Another man was killed when his tractor rolled and trapped him beneath it. One more man…
It’s been a long time since there’s been consistently positive news to talk about in the dairy markets. Class III prices are heading into the second half of 2024 with prices above $19 per hundredweight.
As the dairy industry navigates HPAI cases now on more than 80 dairy farms in 11 states, one issue to come increasingly more in focus is workplace safety. Three cases of HPAI in workers have now been documented, with the most recent leading to respiratory illness and not just infection in the eyes. USDA and…
