Let’s Chat Dairy is a weekly podcast, hosted by HighGround Dairy’s top analysts. At the end of every week, they sit down to recap the week in dairy markets and summarize recent reports and relevant news. The podcast can be found here on our dashboard, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Subscribe so that you never miss an episode!
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Transcript:
(0:14) Alyssa Badger:
Hello everyone, and thank you so much for tuning in to Let’s Chat Dairy, your favorite weekly market podcast powered by HighGround Dairy. Today is Friday, June 28th, and you’re hearing from Alyssa Badger and Cara Murphy. It was a fun week of mostly international data flows, but there were also some notable developments within the domestic market here in the US as well. So with that, I think let’s get into the CME Spot Market Recap, and then talk about some other fundamentals driving US markets. Cara?
(0:46) Cara Murphy:
Alrighty. Well, the block versus barrel inversion that has been in place since May 14th officially ended on Thursday when blocks moved upwards to $1.91 per pound, where it held unchanged today with a total of 7 trades. Meanwhile, barrels moved lower to $1.88 per pound with 5 trades in total. After a bullish-looking Cold Storage Report, which we will get into in a bit, butter moved higher to $3.12 today and saw 17 trades in total. Nonfat dry milk remains ever range-bound between $1.18 and $1.20, closing today at $1.1825 with 24 trades, and dry whey sits at $0.49 per pound with just 2 trades on the week.
(1:29) Alyssa:
Alright, so where should we start on the fundamentals side? What about an update on some livestock slaughter? What did those numbers look like this week?
(1:36) Cara:
For sure. Slaughter rates across the US continue to trend at levels not seen since 2008. This week, total US Dairy Cow Slaughter marked 47,600 head on a year-to-date basis that is about 1.5 million, which is 208,000 below where we were last year, at the same time. All major dairy-producing regions are running below prior-year levels, with the largest decline seen in the West, California, and the south-central Texas-New Mexico region on a year-to-date basis.
With tight replacement heifer inventories and high costs, producers are keeping animals in the herd for longer, posing the question, what impact will an older, average herd mean for milk production? Putting on my animal science hat here, this is actually quite interesting. Michigan State University provided some insights. The average number of lactations for a dairy cow is about 2.5, which means cows are in the herd for about 60 months or a little over 5 years if we make some assumptions on calving intervals. First lactation animals produce 80-85% of the milk that a cow in her third or greater lactation cycle can produce, so that means if we keep cows in the herd for longer, and thus into their third, fourth, and fifth lactation cycles, they should produce more milk. Ultimately suggesting that the reduction in cow turnover, keeping cows in the herd for longer, should technically show an improvement in milk per cow. Now there are some caveats here—one of the biggest issues being cow health—as older animals can have more foot and leg problems, and milking is an energy-intensive activity. Lower turnover also means slower rates of genetic improvement as well, but in all, the science suggests that this could be positive for milk production in the coming months. We will see if that’s so.
(3:21) Alyssa:
Ooh, very interesting, so perhaps our modern-day farm practices have some things to consider here, especially with tight heifer inventories. Now I know you did a special episode earlier in the week on those May Cold Storage figures, but would you mind doing a quick recap on those numbers for us here?
(3:38) Cara:
I’d be remiss not to. As mentioned earlier, we had a bullish outcome for butter that moved the spot market higher this week. 380.2 million pounds of butter was reported in cold storage in the month of May, lower than expectations. 18.1 million pounds was put away from April to May, which was smaller than the 5-year average. Excluding the 2020 pandemic year, this was the smallest build between these months since 2013. Stocks were up 3.4% year-on-year, however, they are by no means at record highs, which is why the market sentiment for this data was bullish.
On the cheese board, there were bullish expectations all around, which materialized in a higher block price to end this week. Total cheese stocks fell by 700,000 pounds from April to May, a counter-seasonal move we have not seen since 2020 or 2019 if you exclude that year. Most notably, there was a significant 16.3 million pound lower revision to the April data, which accounted for a 1.1% decrease. This was primarily due to a 13.6 million pound lower revision to natural American cheese, which flipped the March to April build of 1.3% to a 0.4% loss. Other than American cheese marked the lowest May stock since 2019 at 622 million pounds. So far this year, demand for other than American cheese varieties has been a banger. Exports in March and April were impressive, while domestic consumption was up in April as well.
Alyssa:
Thanks, Cara. Anything else worth bringing up for U.S. market participants?
(5:14) Cara:
Two more things, actually. First, we have mentioned this before in our HPAI updates, but we finally have some concrete news out of the USDA. The agency announced they will begin accepting applications for an expanded Emergency Assistance Program to provide financial assistance to eligible dairy producers who have incurred milk losses due to High Pathogenic Avian Influenza infection in their herds. The program will start this Monday, July 1st, for farmers who meet the eligibility criteria. For more information, you can visit usda.gov. And as always, High Ground will continue to provide updates on our Dairy Market Resource Center.
(5:54)
The second thing we have to talk about is the USDA released the anxiously awaited 2024 Acreage and Quarterly Grain Stocks Report this morning. The USDA estimated corn planted acreage at 91.5 million acres and said 3.36 million still need to be planted. This is the eighth-highest corn planting since 1944. While area harvested for corn is expected down 4% from last year, corn stocks totaled 4.99 billion bushels as of June 1st, 2024, up 22% from last year. This outcome had markets moving lower, with the December 2024 Corn Futures contracts now at $4.20 per bushel. For soybeans, planted area is estimated at 86.1 million, up 3% from last year. While soybeans stored in all positions totaled 970 million bushels as of June 1st, up 22% from last year as well. Soybean Futures moved lower in the nearby months, but moved higher in the later months. September 2024 soybean futures as of this recording are at about $11 per bushel.
Well Alyssa, let’s get into the global markets now, shall we? Which continent should we start with first?
(7:07) Alyssa:
Let’s stick with the northern hemisphere a little longer and chat about Europe. The big story this week was out of Denmark, who exports roughly 1 million metric tons of dairy products each year. They ended up announcing that they will introduce a tax on livestock carbon dioxide emissions from 2030, making it the first country to do so. The deal, which is still subject to approval by parliament, but widely supported by farmers, environmental groups, and labor unions, would tax farmers 300 Danish crowns per metric ton of CO2 in 2030, increasing to 750 Danish crowns by 2035. However, farmers would also be entitled to an income tax deduction of 60 percent, lowering the overall cost of the tax. This decision comes only a few weeks after New Zealand scrapped plans to instill a similar ag emissions tax, citing that it would instead establish a pastoral sector group with representatives from various ag sectors to find other ways to reduce emissions.
(8:10)
Otherwise, from a supply and demand perspective, after struggling against a wet spring, European Milk Production posted a growth rate of 0.8% compared to prior year in April. That was according to Eurostat, of course. German and French output registered little growth, up 0.1% year-over-year for both countries. That said, weekly collections from Germany have since reported impressive gains over 2023 throughout May and June, which suggests a more positive May print is likely. In contrast, French weekly milk collection figures dipped in May with peak milk production falling short of the previous year. However, output has since rebounded to trends above 2023 as milk flows head into their seasonal decline.
Butter prices in Europe declined for the third consecutive week according to the European Energy Exchange Indices, albeit at relatively minimal increments as increased supplies cooled the market. With reports of tight availability, butter manufacturers pushed more milk into churns, producing a counter-seasonal increase in output across major milk-producing regions. Cheese production popped in April with all but four countries reporting higher cheese production than a year ago. While demand is reportedly healthy, driven by summer holiday season in southern Europe and improving weather conditions, the increase in cheese availability certainly put a damper on prices this week.
(9:36) Cara:
Right, Alyssa, should we keep talking about supplies for a bit then discuss all the information out from Asia this week?
(9:42) Alyssa:
Yeah, sure. I love the idea because New Zealand’s May Milk Production as well as Export Figures were out this week too, so let’s get into it. The last month of the season resulted in a decline in milk production as expected, dropping 4.3% on a milk solids basis, or down 6.2% on a tonnage basis, though the scale is a little bit larger than we had penciled in to our forecast. This May figure includes the New Zealand production season, with milk production expanding 0.2% over prior year when adjusted for leap year on a milk solids basis. The key driver of this decline in production was one part weather-related and one part margins. Weather during May was colder than normal, with farmers reporting that winter has started early, and as such, pasture production slowed, creating feed supply issues as farmers approached winter. The situation has flipped into June, with unseasonably warm weather reported through most of the month to date, helping to boost winter pasture production, somewhat making up for that decline in May.
(10:46)
Moving on to exports, overall New Zealand shipments in May 2024 dipped 3% from prior year. The largest overall year-on-year decline can be attributed to a 60% loss in volume moving to Algeria. Exports to China make up a similar market share during the month, however, volume slipped just 5%, and the bulk of this decline was due to less whole milk powder followed by fluid milk and cream. New Zealand butter exports were also down, with exports to China and the US actually increasing, while most of the other top 10 markets recorded year-on-year declines. Protein shipments from New Zealand surged in May, with casein, caseinate, and WPC-80 exports all above year-prior levels, and a bulk of these products were destined for China or the US. Skim milk powder volumes fell slightly, but remained well above long-term export levels.
(11:41) Cara:
Last but not least, let’s talk Asia. Another month of data and another drop in Chinese Dairy Imports, with this year’s May recording the lowest volume since 2017. While negative, New Zealand’s market share did increase.
(11:54) Alyssa:
Right you are, Cara. One of the more notable results was that drop in skim milk powder, which fell to the lowest volume into China since December of 2017. Fat demand did remain high from the country while cheese imports were lower. High protein whey demand continues to improve, though interesting, the US has successfully recaptured market share away from Germany in recent months. Also worth mentioning in China is that Chinese milk prices continue to crash to more than decade lows, but the national effort to support and promote fresh dairy consumption remains high. There is seemingly a bigger push toward fresh dairy and functional products.
Cara, you were wrapping up our other Asia Trade Flow Volume Analysis today. Any other key takeaways there?
(12:40) Cara:
Yeah, I was fascinated this month by May 2024 Japanese cheese imports, which marked the highest May since 2020 due to larger shipments from Australia, Netherlands, and Ireland. Cheap prices from the US earlier this year drove South Korea as well in May to pick up 932 metric tons more of cheese from the United States at the expense of product from Europe, particularly Germany, Denmark, and Ireland.
And lastly, March 2024 imports of dry whey into the Philippines recorded the highest volume since January 2023. Greater shipments from Belarus, Ireland, and Belgium made up a bulk of those imports. To learn more on the movement of other dairy commodities into these countries, you can check out our report.
(13:27) Alyssa:
All right, that does it for this week. Thank you all so much for tuning in to this week’s Let’s Chat Dairy. Be sure to subscribe and join us next week for another discussion on dairy fundamentals. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, feel free to reach out to us via email at info@highgrounddairy.com. Cheers.
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The post Let’s Chat Dairy – 28 June 2024 appeared first on HighGround Dairy.