(Click to enlarge)
Milk Production numbers came out today. According to USDA there was a 0.1% increase in milk production for the whole country.
There are some troubling aspects to the numbers. In the first place, as can be seen from the above graph, there is no connection, none, between price and production.
More troubling is that USDA indicates milk production per cow in the 23 lead dairy states was up 9 pounds for the month. This is with producers not able to pay grain bills. If you look at the numbers for the entire country, which includes states with no reputation for pushing cows, milk production per cow was up 11 pounds per cow. Hard to believe. Remember too, there are fewer producers using rbST this May than last.
There are 31,446,925.9936 seconds in a year and there is a net increase of one person every 11 seconds. Each person consumes about 600 pounds of milk per year.
If anyone went to all the trouble to do the math, the answer would still be debatable. And that is because there is a margin of error in all the numbers. What is not debatable is that May 2008 all milk price was $18.30 per hundredweight compared with $11.70 per hundredweight May 2009.
Great blog!
ReplyDeleteI agree, great blog.
ReplyDeleteWe as dairy farmers would be wise to pay attention to what Mr. Bunting is telling us. I said it before and will keep saying it, as I believe it to be true; When (not if) milk production drops off in this country, milk prices still may not rebound all that much. Ask yourself this, why should they? Higher milk, beef, and pork prices only benifit the farmer. The rest of the industry all the way to the consumer seem to be more than willing to sacrifice this countries animal agriculture for low food prices, high profits, alleged cleaner air and let's not forget the perception of farm animal wellbeing. Think about it. What does your brain tell you?
Jeff Suehring