Market News
Dairy markets mixed
Another mixed day in the dairy markets on Thursday. Cash cheese barrels held steady on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange but blocks slipped a half-cent. Butter was steady and nonfat dry milk gained a penny. Class III futures were higher for the first-half of the year and mixed for the second-half.
Monthly Cold Storage Report from USDA shows total cheese in cold storage at the end of December was just over 1 billion pounds, just slightly less than at the end of November and slightly more than in the coolers at the end of 2013. American-type cheese stocks were 624 million pounds as of December 31st, down 2 percent from the end of November but 1 percent more than a year ago. Butter stocks stood at 98.6 million pounds on December 31st, down 2 percent from November and 12 percent below a year ago.
Dairy cow slaughter in December totaled 257,000, 39,000 more than sent to slaughter in November and equal to the 257,000 in December of 2013. For the year, 2.8 million dairy cows were slaughtered under federal inspection compared to 3.1 million in 2013.
Milk production in the U.S. in December totaled 17.3 billion pounds up 3.1 percent compared to December of 2013. The nation’s dairy herd was at 9.3 million cows up 100,000 head from a year ago. Production per cow averaged 1,862 pounds, a 37-pound increase over December of 2013. For the October-through-December quarter production was 50.9 billion pounds up 3.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013. For the year, preliminary numbers show just under 204 billion pounds of milk produced in the U.S. a 2.4 percent increase over 2013.
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