Dairy Skim – October 2024 US Milk Production Report

Dairy Skim is a bite-size episode series where HighGround’s top analysts break down the latest dairy data release. Today, Betty Berning discusses the October 2024 US Milk Production Report. Customers can view the snapshot report here. Subscribe so that you never miss an episode!

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Transcript:

Betty Berning:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Dairy Skim, HighGround Dairy’s bite-sized podcast intended to give the dairy industry some flavor into recent reports or events that can impact global commodity pricing. Today you are joined by Betty Berning, and we have the first piece of October’s dairy data from USDA Milk production.

I will not keep you in suspense. The US recorded a third month in a row of increased milk volumes, up 0.2%. September’s totals were taken up 52 million pounds, a big revision, and finally we saw some interesting things in the regional data. California’s production was definitely impacted by avian influenza, and Texas and Kansas are ramping up for the new cheese capacity coming online there.

Let’s start with a recap though of October’s totals. US cows produced 18.1 billion pounds of milk that month, which was 0.2% more than October 2023. This was driven by a larger herd, which counted to 9.365 million head, and that’s the biggest number since September 2023. It’s also a climb of 19,000 head from September, and this is the first time since May of last year that the herd has increased on a year-over-year basis. Milk per cow was not as robust as we anticipated in October though, and while it was up 0.2% year-over-year, it was lower than two years ago and dropped 20 pounds from September, which is a pretty sizable fall between those two months.

Okay, you may have thought I just skipped over an important detail. How in the world did the US herd get to 9.365 million head? Don’t worry, I have that. USDA made a huge revision to September, including herd size. So starting with milk production, milk production was lifted 52 million pounds from initial print, and then milk per cow was also increased by two pounds, and that helped to boost overall milk production numbers, but cows increased a lot. USDA upped September’s milk cow numbers from 9.328 million head to 9.346 million head, and that’s a change of 18,000 cows. Wow. So where were the cows added in September? USDA added 10,000 head to Texas to September total and 4,000 to Kansas, and those are both places where new cheesemaking capacity is starting or will be commencing soon. Cow numbers were also taken up in September in Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Let’s get back to October though and talk about the regionality of these numbers.

Through the Plains states and into the Western Mountain states, growth occurred. While in California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest, milk volumes fell year over year. So diving in further, as expected, avian influenza hit California hard. Milk volumes dropped 3.8% in October and the herd shrunk by 1,000 head. Milk per cow was down 3.6% and on a 30-day adjusted basis was 1,805 pounds per cow. This is the lowest milk per cow number on a 30-day adjusted basis since September 2017. So in seven years, the cows were hit hard by avian influenza.

In the Plains states though, growth is happening. So Texas added another 10,000 cows. Their herd is at 675,000. And in case you’re wondering, the last time Texas’s herd was this big was in 1958. So they’re adding a lot of cows to support those cheese plants. Milk per cow also climbed in the Lone Star State up 2.3% year over year and rising counter-seasonally from September to October too. All-in milk production grew 8.8% there. Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, and Idaho all saw year-over-year growth on a milk production basis. Notably, Kansas and Iowa added cows from September to October and Iowa even grew milk per cow counter-seasonally. Other places where cows were added in October included Michigan and New Mexico. And New Mexico’s milk per cow grew from September, which is counter to the typical decrease between those two months. Overall though, milk production does remain down versus prior year in New Mexico. In the Upper Midwest and into the Great Lakes states, milk production in October was pretty lackluster. Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin all decreased milk collections while Michigan and Indiana grew less than a half percent.

The results were similar in the Great Lakes states and into the Northeast as Ohio, New York, and Vermont milk volumes were either up or down by less than a half percent and even Pennsylvania was up just 0.6%.

That’s what I have for now. Watch your inbox and we will have more detailed milk production analysis to you early tomorrow morning and then the team will be back again later this week for our Let’s Chat Dairy podcast on Friday. Next Monday we’ll get more October data when USDA releases a Cold Storage Report ahead of Thanksgiving. So we will talk soon. Have a good night and cheers.