When it comes to milk production and meeting the needs of its citizens, 27 states fall short of even producing enough milk to fill beverage demand. Those states each produce less than 300 pounds of milk per person, which is the threshold for meeting fluid and soft dairy products needs.
As the graphic indicates, nearly all of those red states start in a crescent shaped pattern from Illinois, Missouri and Oklahoma and then sweep south and east with New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont being the only states that exceed dairy product production and hence the green shading. That green threshold is 600 pounds of dairy products per person, which makes the state a net dairy exporter. In this area of the country, Ohio, Indiana and Maine are mid-level states marked in yellow, meaning they fill fluid milk needs but not all dairy product sales.
On the flip side, there are four states that far exceed the pack of 18 dairy exporting states: Idaho, 8,488 pounds; Wisconsin, 4,828 pounds; Vermont, 4,255 pounds; and New Mexico, 3,886 pounds.
In the western half of the country, only the mainland states of Montana, Wyoming and Nevada are milk deficit and shaded red. Hawaii and Alaska join that mix, too.
(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2015
March 2, 2015
