A very nice end of the week for Class III dairy futures. Even though cash cheese held steady on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Friday, Class III contracts for 2010 saw double-digit increases. The push came from the monthly cattle slaughter report, National Ag Statistics Service says a total of 256,000 dairy cows went to slaughter in March, 33,000 more than in February and 18,000 more than March of last year.
While the March numbers reversed a recent trend, they were not enough to offset January and February completely. For the first three months of 2010 a total of 712,000 dairy cows went to slaughter, 50,000 less than the first quarter of 2009.
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