While cash cheese blocks slipped another penny on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Thursday, Class III futures saw some nice increases. A little support from the January Milk Production Report released on Wednesday, while overall milk production in the U.S. was up 0.5 percent from a year ago that actually slows the pace of increase we have seen over the last few months.
National Dairy Products Sales Report for the week ending February 16th cheddar cheese blocks averaged $1.66 per pounds down 2 cents from the previous week, barrels averaged $1.59 per pound down 1.7 cents, and butter averaged $1.56 per pound up 4.2 cents from the previous week. Dry whey was 1.2 cents cheaper at 63.4 cents per pound and Grade A nonfat dry milk averaged $1.56 down 1.5 cents.
Advanced Prices and Pricing Factors for March the Base Class I price is $17.80 per cwt. down 41 cents from February. Base Skim Milk price for Class I is $12.44 down 47 cents.
NASS reporting 297,000 dairy cows slaughtered under federal inspection in January, 40,000 more than in December and 33,000 more than January of 2012.
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The only way for us to receive higher prices for our milk production is to cut back on the production . We have been very fortunate to be able to export 13% of our production this past year . All indications are that some of our markets are starting to retract . If we do not exhibit an effort to curb growth in production , prices will fall even further . I understand there is a desire on some farmers part , to get bigger . I had a farmer tell me the other day that he was at 1000 head and needed to get to 2000 as soon as he could . He said he would be big enough then that people would pay attention to him . He was appalled when I told that when he got to 2000, he would need only another 90000 head to produce 1% of the nations milk .I believe that the nations largest botteler of milk handles over 20% of the nations milk . Sooooo— – - How big is big enough ?????