Milk prices

A local farmer said recently that his coop told him to expect $10.33 per hundred this month in North Pennsylvania. I was wondering what milk prices are in other parts of the country?

Vt paper articleMilk Prices Plummet To Six Year Low BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Milk prices paid to farmers have plunged to the lowest levels in nearly six years. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the price per hundred pounds of milk dropped to $10.72 for February, down $5.02 from January, and $8.96 from a year ago. The current price is the lowest it’s been since 2003. The demand for milk products has plunged in the global economic downturn, said Robert Wellington, a vice president of the dairy cooperative Agri- Mark. The country is now producing too much milk, he said. Farmers that provide milk to Agri- Mark were getting $1.99 a gallon in August 2007, Wellington said. The amount will drop to a $1 a gallon by spring, he said. It costs Vermont farmers roughly $1.55 to produce a gallon of milk. Diane Bothfeld, a dairy industry specialist with the Vermont Department of Agriculture, Food and Markets, expects the average price paid to farmers in 2009 to be $1.21, including the money farmers get from the federal Milk Income Loss Contract. “Farmers are getting the same paycheck as the unemployed and the farmers are working a hundred hours a week,” Wellington said. Before the price took a plunge, farmers already were feeling the pinch from high fuel prices and other costs, said Beverly Robinson, who with her husband, Kenneth, owns a small dairy farm in St. Johnsbury. “It must be tough on those people who have a big payroll. I don’t know how they’re stretching it. We watch the pennies and hope the nickels and dimes show up,” she said.

Yesterday's check was $11.45, a 22% drop from my Jan. 2 check. Am told it will drop further, although no one can give much of a reason why... or why the drop on this end doesn't show up at the store. (this is n/w WI)

There's a 60 day lag in class one price. Meaning the fluid milk bottled to be sold in the stores in January was based on Novembers price. Class 2,which is soft product,has a 30 day lag. Class 3 represents the current price.

Brutal.Hope this doesn't start another round of dairies closing.

Vito

i have been told milk futures for march are $9.50
it will take a lot of milk to pay for $4 corn.

yes, but that 60 day lag evaporates if our prices are on the way up.

No,it just takes 60 days to catch up,whether it's going up or down. I just sold my cows 5 years ago. I milked for 33 years prior to that. I was president of the Dairyland Local of Michigan Milk Producers Assn,was on the State Resolutions Committee for a lot of years as well as the District Nominating Committee. Trust me,I know how this works.

Milk pricing is a strange beast but, as others have said, its been kicked in the head all over. Its very possible that March milk may be below 10.00 per hundred. I stopped by one of my friends places night before last. He told me that, since 1974, he's never sold milk below 10.00. Class IV California milk is below 5.00 per hundred.

Its a bottom up problem in the milk markets. International demand for NFDM was at an all time high. Demand was so high for dried milk that a lot of class II and III milk was being dried. All that meant that class I milk was being diverted for cheese and ice cream. When the non fat dry milk market fell apart (class IV). Its made the alfalfa market on the west coast fall apart, and that hay may very well end up headed east if fuel stays cheap.

You know fellas being a person who has grown up on a dairy farm that has seen milk at 4.50cwt to 9.50 and that was early to mid 60's and corn from 1.50 to 1.20 bu to 2.40 a bu the point I'm making do we have a seceratry of agriculture anymore? To me it is deplorable to see prices still at 40 year levels and we worry about what auto manufacture should get bailouts its sad. My feeling is let them eat the cars but food still rules hang in there Washington still doesn't get it. IMHO

Just read in the Country Folks paper today "The milk price crash is here $5.02 per hundred weight drop" January 23 the price of milk nose dived down to $13.97 down from $18.99 in January. Sad to say but its real and its here, buckle up and hold on for the ride, if you can. Seems impossable thought.

I just know I'm glad I'm out of it and quit when I did. Last time I talked to a friend of mine who was president of another local and was on Resolutions Committee with me,was early November. He was fuming back then. Said MMPA wasn't accepting any new members at that time because there was such a glut of milk,haulers were waiting up to 12 hours to unload. He said the Board of Directors had sent out a letter urging all members to freeze production,but then the district rep on the board was adding on to double the size of his herd. Another little guy with a big herd (if you get my drift) is constantly expanding too,just p!ssing everybody off even more. Guess what I'm getting at is,throughout history,there have always been SOME who don't have the good sense to keep supplies tight. Or as market analysts are fond of saying,the best cure for high prices is high prices.

Ya know, I don't think they will ever get it, agriculture needs to be sustained here in the good ole U.S., I know things change but what happens when you put the farmer out of business, the land goes up for sale and when that happens around here, developers want it, you know because we need housing for all the middle easterners moving in like around here, heck they have enough housing already, get financed under some real nice terms to attend the best colleges to boot and some darned developer wants to give em more, and upgrade them to high end condos in our ag land. The land is available, cause it just don't pay to farm or it's time for retirement. It's bad enough that age catches up with all of us and people have to retire out of it, no one wants to get into it or take over cause it don't pay. We lose all this manufacturing overseas as well, enough already. In some respects I think the U.S. should be an exclusive club, maybe like NZ or similar where it is hard to get in, and they need to figure out what we can do to sustain a reasonable amount of agriculture to keep our hand in it, the guy upstairs is not making any more land! We lose prime ag land near urban areas, it just creates more areas to be populated, there is not an easy solution to this overall problem by any means, but why wait until it is too late or the brink of disaster which is so often the case in today's society. Don't mean to complain, the long term outlook just does not appear so good, and I sincerely hope I'm completely wrong, one of the things I've always admired about the U.S. is the American farmer, they put up with a lot and never get a fair shake.

Here is a link to a site that has daily updated news reports from all over the country regarding anything in the news pertaining to the dairy industry. Read 'em and weep.
dairyline.com

already there. last check i got was $10 per hundred and it's still going down. my milkman thinks it will get below $6. thats a real kick in the pants
DF in WI

A whole flock of the Amish around Fremont have gone organic in the last year. MMPA has set it up to market the milk thru Hood, I think it was. My milk cows are up in one of those herds.I wonder how the organic thing is working out for them. They were excited to get into it the way they did because they would keep all the benefits of being an MMPA member, but get paid a heck of alot better price.

Isn't there still a government base price? I remember base being 9.90 and 10.10 at different times when I was milking.

Retail here is $4.99 per 4 liter jug plus 25 cent deposit. Go figure.

Been a lot of years since I was around the milk end of the dairy bussiness so I am out of touch with current news.

But since you guys want to talk milk prices......
Maybe one of you will tell us how the 2008 Farm Act affected the MPSP and the MILC.

If you are really in touch with current news maybe you can also explain the DEIP and how it will or will not effect the price.

One of the old timers I've known all my life sold out a couple of years ago when the price of milk had been low for a long time. His auction was poorly attended and nothing brought a whole lot of money. Right after he had sold, the price of milk went back up and got real high for a short period of time. He had sold absolutely everything, even the gutter cleaner, milk lines, bulk tank, water bowls, etc... out of the barn. He had a whole line of super nice low houred IH tractors and equipment. The only thing he kept was his real estate.

After that he should have just stayed retired, but instead he set out trying to buy back and purchase more equipment to get back into it. He lost an absolute fortune, and now that he has re-bought at high prices, the price has tanked again!

I believe hood is paying 18.00 a hundred for organic....have a buddy that deals with them , they are organic,and I believe that is what he told me last time I asked , because I was under the impression that they were at 28....also they don't get butterfat premiums,and their SCC has to be about half, of the conventional market, and if it misses it goes on the conventional market...which doesn't cover the feed bill....and that reminds me ...I have to help him milk tonite......I love milking cows ....just not in frigid tempatures....Shawn

Just got back from a meeting with two of my clients, one has over 8,000 head in the state and the other is milking over 2,000 head near Marlette, MI and from them the price this morning was 9.36/cwt. Took them to lunch on the company dollar and put all projects on hold.