Dairy Skim – June 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, Alyssa Badger discusses the June 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) Alyssa Badger:
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 Alyssa Badger, HighGround’s Vice President of Global Operations and Insights and the much-awaited June US Milk Production Report has officially dropped, and it was a bit worse than our models were forecasting. Total US milk fell 1%, and the 24-state figure fell 0.8% from a year ago.

(0:48)
Before we get into June, I want to focus in on some pretty interesting revisions that the USDA released for May. The USDA ended up removing 17,000 cows from the national herd in the May figure, so the herd size was down 0.9% year-over-year versus the original 0.7% below prior year. But we didn’t really see those cow numbers drop from impactful states. For example, they only revised the 24-state figure down by 7,000 cows. The milk production revisions were very interesting though. May was originally down 0.9% across the entire country, or a 0.7% loss on the 24-state figure. After today though, both of those percentages got knocked back one-tenth of a point, so full US dropped 1% year-over-year, and the 24-state figure is now at 0.8%, the exact same numbers that we’re seeing for June. California was revised lower for May. The original number showed a 1.5% drop from prior year, but the revision pushed that number even lower to a 1.8% drop from prior year. Idaho was another state to reflect a somewhat large revision for May, now coming in at a negative 1.2% from prior year versus the original 0.6% loss reported last month. The other state I have to mention is Michigan. The original May number was for a positive 0.1% growth from a year ago but ended up being revised low enough to push the state down 0.6% from prior year.

(2:27)
Alright, let’s talk about June data now. Something I noticed right away was that Texas actually added cows in June after months of zero changes or a reduction in the herd, which now sits at 648,000 head. That’s the highest herd size that Texas has seen since March of 2023. This is an important development given the concerns around having enough milk in a state that will have a large uptick in capacity over the next year. And actually, Texas milk production jumped 3.1% from prior year, and that does have a little bit to do with the terrible prior year figure after the tragic barn fires in 2023 that swept the state. These numbers are indicating that Texas has likely also recovered from HPAI concerns as well, though other states are not as lucky.

(3:19)
In recent headlines, Kansas, Colorado, and Michigan were grappling with HPAI, and those states saw pretty negative yields there. We aren’t so sure that’s a coincidence, but using Texas as an example, recovery times can be rather quick. From a volume perspective, New Mexico continues to reflect the most aggressive losses, but California was close behind in June, each state falling more than 60 million pounds below prior year levels. Milk per cow in California dropped 1.5% from a year ago to the lowest collection level for June that we’ve seen in four years.

If you’re looking for a more comprehensive take on this report, the full HighGround Analysis will be available to our subscribers on our website tomorrow. But if you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to contact us at info at highgrounddairy.com. Have a great week. We look forward to talking with you more soon.

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