“A high-impact trend in the dairy industry is the growth or improved efficiency of milk produced per cow,” stated Mark Stephenson, speaking to those attending the Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum held on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on January 19, 2017. “This has been a very linear trend of about 284 pounds of additional milk per cow per year.” That trend dates back to the 1960s as shown in the chart.

“With this growth in productivity, the math would suggest that we only need the milk from a little more than 8 million cows to satisfy our domestic needs,” he said. “However, we have 9.3 million cows in the U.S. herd. The rest of those sales are a result of export demand.”

To comment, email your remarks to intel@hoards.com.