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 September 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:
(0:14) Betty Berning:
Hello everyone, and welcome back 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. This is Betty Berning, and I’m here today to talk about September’s US Milk Production Report. Spoiler alert, it was bearish. The very first thing that grabbed our attention was a massive revision to August milk production. USDA changed August milk volumes to a plus 0.4% year-over-year, and that’s a big change from the initial print of a 0.1% decline. Just to put numbers to it, this is an 89 million pound revision on all US and this is mostly due to increased yields in the state-by-state data, which I’ll talk about in a little bit here.
(1:12)
For September, some of you are probably wondering, what did the new data say? USDA showed a 0.1% increase, again, that’s bearish to our expectations. So, after going into this report thinking we were going to have our 15th month in a row of a year-on-year decrease in US milk production, we now have our second month of an increase. Let’s dive into September data, which is the most recent. Milk per cow of 1,950 pounds was a record for the month, easily besting the high-water mark set last year. The US herd counted to 9.328 million head, and that was unchanged from prior month. It’s still down 38,000 head from a year ago, so that just tells you how impressive those milk per cow gains are that they draw year-on-year increase in milk production. California’s milk production was unchanged from last year, and maybe you can hear it in my voice, but that was a little bit surprising given the report of avian influenza in the state. Improved yields there from prior year drove the change, but compared to the same month in 2020 to 2022, milk per cow was down. Other states logging gains of more than 1% included Idaho, New York, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, South Dakota, Utah, and Georgia. And Georgia’s increase was up 1.3%. We don’t really think of Georgia as a dairy state, but that comes on a herd that is 5,000 head smaller than a year ago. So milk per cow there, if I did my math right, was up 120 pounds this September versus last September, pretty impressive from a dairy state. Places that lost out and were down on milk volumes year over year were places in the Midwest like Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and Iowa, plus a couple places in the Southwest: Arizona and New Mexico. And then rounding that out, Washington and Oregon were also down versus prior year.
(3:24)
Let’s get back to those August numbers, though. August was riddled with revisions. California’s production was actually increased further. It was up 2.3% year on year on improved yields, and the original print was at a 2% increase. So taking up just a little bit more, Idaho’s herd increased 5,000 head, and milk per cow was increased 20 pounds, lifting their totals as well. Colorado’s productivity was increased 25 pounds, and Kansas’ yields were increased by 10 pounds. So lots of increased yields driving that big revision in the August number. Minnesota and Wisconsin, if you remember, Wisconsin’s number was just terrible. Those were both taken upwards again on improved milk per cow. Just to put the Wisconsin number into context, last month we saw a 2.3% year over year decrease. Really big. The chart looked awful. Now August in Wisconsin is down to just a 1% decrease. So USDA increased milk production in Wisconsin by 38 million pounds to get to that only 1% decrease there. South Dakota grew its herd by 1,000 head, and Arizona also saw USDA increase its herd by 3,000 cows. It was not all increases, though a few states did see some declines to their August numbers. That included Michigan, where milk per cow was taken lower by 20 pounds. Florida was also taken down quite a bit to minus 1.9%, which is a big change from last month when August was showing up 0.6%. Washington and New York were also taken down.
I am going to keep looking over all this data. There’s a lot of revisions to go through as well as the new September numbers. So I’ll keep you updated. Subscribers, watch your inbox and you will have the analysis early tomorrow morning. Please reach out to the team at HighGround if you have any questions. The email is info@highgrounddairy.com. Thanks for your support, everyone. Have a great night and cheers.
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