Industry News

After a three-year run when annual U.S. per-capita dairy product consumption rose from the year before, 2017 yielded a small decline in overall consumption. The decrease was mostly attributed to a continuing drop in fluid milk consumption.

You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees and preparing year-end financials. With that in mind, Progressive Dairyman looks at issues in the news impacting you and your dairy business. In recognition of your time, we’ll attempt to summarize recent events or actions making dairy headlines and reported in our weekly digital newsletter, Progressive Dairyman Extra. Then, we’ll try to put that news into perspective and briefly describe how it might affect you.

October 2018 U.S. milk production increased less than 1 percent from the same month a year earlier, as cow numbers dropped to their lowest level since February 2017. With October’s estimate, U.S. milk production growth has now been under 1 percent in four of 10 months in 2018, according to USDA’s monthly Milk Production report, released Nov. 19.

Digest Highlights

• Interest rates move to seven-year high
• Farm wages on the rise
• September fluid sales falter
• STATES: Dairy students may qualify for UW – Madison’s ‘Bucky’s Tuition Promise’
• DFA opens ‘The Creamery’ retail store in Utah
• POLICY: USMCA welcomed, but dairy concerns remain
• FDA extends plant-based label comment period
• USDA, FDA to collaborate on cell-cultured livestock, poultry product regulation

The number of U.S. farms restructuring debt by filing Chapter 12 bankruptcy in the past year was lower than a year earlier. However, filings were higher in regions most heavily dependent on dairy and row crops for income.