A decline in cow numbers and a modest gain in milk output per cow helped limit July 2018 U.S. milk production growth to just 0.4 percent compared to a year earlier. Reviewing the USDA estimates for July 2018 compared to July 2017:

• U.S. milk production: 18.35 billion pounds, up 0.4 percent
• U.S. cow numbers: 9.396 million, down 8,000 head
• U.S. average milk per cow per month: 1,953 pounds, up 10 pounds
• 23-state milk production: 17.3 billion pounds, up 0.4 percent
• 23-state cow numbers: 8.735 million, up 1,000 head
• 23-state average milk per cow per month: 1,980 pounds, up 8 pounds

Looking deeper

Cow numbers: At 9.396 million head, U.S. cow numbers dipped below 9.4 million for the first time since last November. U.S. cow numbers were down 8,000 head from both June 2018 and July 2017. Cow numbers in the 23 major dairy states were up about 1,000 head from a year ago, but 8,000 less than June 2018 (Table 1). As of late July, dairy cull cow slaughter was running about 75,000 head more than the same period a year ago.   Read more

  Uncertain times in the dairy world make our road to robotic milking scary, but here we go. We are finally finished with our plans to add robots on the sides of our conventional freestall flush barn. It required many conversations with our robotic equipment company (DeLaval), our family, consultants, contractors, and our engineering team at JGM3. We finally have a plan that we all seem to like.

Some of the considerations that we had to think about are different than the robotic farms we toured in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and those under construction in South Carolina and Tennessee. Here are a few of those considerations...      Read more 

Progressive Dairyman launched this column: "What happened? What's next?" 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 seek out experts and sources, putting that news into perspective and, most importantly, briefly describe how it might affect you.

TARIFF WARS

What happened?

In late July, USDA officials provided a broad overview of Trump administration efforts to lessen the negative impact of ongoing tariff wars on the nation's agricultural producers, including dairy farmers. To offset those losses and relieve the financial stress faced by U.S. farmers, the USDA planned to authorize up to $12 billion for three programs: direct payments to producers to offset losses, government purchases of agricultural commodities for feeding and nutrition programs, and money to assist in the development of new domestic and export markets.

What's next?

Don't spend your "tariff wars" check from the USDA quite yet. Further details and implementation of those programs aren't expected until September.

Despite the lack of details, early forecasts of how much money individual dairy farmers will receive started trickling out. Those hypothetical payments were frequently based on an early estimate from the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) that the full impact of retaliatory tariffs - based on sharply lower milk futures prices in June - could cost U.S. dairy farmers about $1.65 per hundredweight, or a total of $1.8 billion, through the second half of 2018.

It's important to note the early estimate of financial damages caused by retaliatory tariffs was based on futures prices, not actual sales and monetary losses. Dairy futures have already improved somewhat since the initial impacts were estimated.      Read more  

A dairy farm employee charged with the kidnapping and murder of Mollie Tibbetts used another person's identity and documentation to gain employment.

"Our employee is not who he said he was," says Dane Lang, manager of Yarrabee Farms where the person charged had been employed. Cristhian Bahama Rivera had been employed at the Brooklyn, Iowa dairy for four years and was considered an "employee in good standing." When Rivera was hired in 2014 he presented an out-of-state government-issued photo identification card and a Social Security card.

Lang says they used the Social Security Number Verification Service to verify the documents presented by Rivera at the time of employment, not the e-verify system as previously suggested.  The two systems are similar, but not the same.    Read more

The appeal of a vending machine is that it delivers food you can eat on the spot, like peanut M&M's, potato chips, Oreos, or soda. Newer innovations such as the cupcake ATM and the salad-stocked Farmer's Fridge check that box, too.

Most people don't consider raw steak to be ready-to-eat, unless they're following an extreme cave man diet.

But Joshua Applestone, founder of Applestone Meat Co., sees the future in vending machines filled with strip steaks, pork chops, and Italian sausage. He's installed four of them at his four-year-old location in Stone Ridge, in Ulster County, N.Y., near the trendy town of Woodstock. Each is filled with a different type of protein: beef, pork, lamb, and ground meat and sausage. He has to restock the machines constantly to keep up with demand. Later this year, Applestone is expanding to Hudson, where the store will have at least seven machines. By early next year the company will open in Scarsdale, where he's planning for 10 machines, and later in 2019 he'll open in Manhattan, with possibly even more.      Read more