Lower milk prices continue to be the story for the dairy industry, and USDA is predicting this trend will continue for a while. Forecasters once again cutting this year’s all-milk price projections in the latest supply and demand report, dropping the price 40 cents to $19.55 per cwt. Milk production projections for 2023 were left unchanged from last month, ending at 228.4 billion lb. If that is realized, milk production for the year would be up just a fraction compared to last year.
The 2024 milk production forecast was lowered by 200 million lb. to just over 230 billion lb. That’s due to lower dairy cow inventories and slower growth in milk per cow. Butter prices did get a bit of a boost for this year while cheese, dry whey and nonfat dry milk prices all took a negative hit.
Vermont Flooding
New England is a big area for dairy production. And with those recent floods, many producers were concerned they would have to dump milk. Vermont’s ag leader says despite historic flooding, losses were kept to a minimum. The Vermont Digger reports that despite having roads damaged across the state, most of what farmers produced made it to a processing facility.
Haulers and dispatchers worked together to communicate which roads in the state were creating the greatest problems. Those roads were then put on a priority list for the agency of transportation to address. One agency milk inspector would even go ahead in his car to the next farm scheduled for pickup in order to scout out the best route. Other inspectors then did the same around the state.
