W7: Weekly Dairy Update
Milk
Ireland: Farmers Allowed to Use 2023 Milk Production Figures for Banding (Feb 17)
Dairy farmers will be allowed to use their milk production for 2023 to determine which band they will be placed in for this year in the new Nitrates Action Program (NAP). That’s according to the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), which met with Minister for Agriculture, Food, and the Marine Charlie McConalogue on February 17. However, he also said that the minister confirmed to the ICMSA that farmers will be allowed to use their 2023 milk production on a ‘once-off’ basis to determine their band this year.
Long-term cost coverage is a basic requirement for stable production. According to the updated quarterly cost study of the Office for Rural Sociology and Agriculture (BAL), production costs in Germany for October 2022 amounted to 47.51 cents per kg, while the average price of milk in the exploitation in the same period was 59.33 cents per kg. This means that the costs were covered during this period. As can be seen from the evolution of milk production costs in recent years, cost coverage was achieved only a few months earlier, in July 2022, for the first time since the study existed. The trend had already become apparent in April 2022. Since then, producer prices have continued to rise, reaching almost 60 cents in October 2022. The price/cost ratio illustrates to what extent milk prices cover production costs. In October 2022, milk prices covered the cost of production. Cost coverage stood at 125%.
Milk production this year is likely to be lower than previously expected amid lower dairy cow stocks, USDA indicates. Production is projected at 103.56M MT, down 408.23K MT from last month's forecast, led by lower heifer replacement, active dairy cull, high feed cost outlook, and lower milk prices than expected.
US: Dairy Cows Continue to Move Inland (Feb 16)
The latest US Department of Agriculture (USDA) milk production report released recently did not bring much change, with December milk production up just 0.8% YoY, totaling 8.6B kilos of milk. In the year 2022, milk production grew by 0.2% compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the number of cows in the US has seen growth, with an additional 38K head compared to December 2021. That's still 9K head less compared to November 2022. Revised USDA production for November documented an increase of 1.1% higher than a year earlier, at 3.58M kg. This November revision represented a drop of 22.2M kg, down 0.3% from last month's preliminary production estimate. As revealed in the report, Texas led YoY growth with an increase of 25K head, followed by South Dakota with an additional 16K cows, Iowa with an additional 14K head, and New York with an increase of 10K cows.
The volume of milk production amounted to 535.9 K MT and livestock and poultry for slaughter to 150.8K MT in 2021. In terms of gross milk yield, the Nizhny Novgorod Region ranked fifth in the Volga Federal District after Tatarstan, Udmurtia, the Kirov Region, and Bashkortostan. Milk productivity of cows in agricultural organizations of the Nizhny Novgorod region, not related to small businesses, increased by 5.5% and at the end of the year amounted to 7,386 kg. According to this indicator, the region is in seventh place in the Volga Federal District, behind the Penza and Kirov regions, as well as Mordovia, Mari El, Udmurtia, and Tatarstan.
According to the results of 2022, the number of cattle in the farms of the Orenburg region increased to 125K heads, the largest increase by more than 10%, and was due to state support. This was announced to TASS on Feb 19 by the First Vice Governor, First Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Orenburg Region, and Minister of Agriculture, Trade, Food, and Processing Industry of the region Sergey Balykin. Farm livestock, as specified in the ministry, makes up almost a quarter of the total livestock in the region, 125K heads out of 526.1K heads. Grant support helped farmers to purchase livestock, and modern equipment, increase meat and milk production, improve product quality, organize the processing of raw materials, and create new jobs in the countryside. According to Balykin, USD 4.26M was allocated for these purposes in 2022.
Turkey: The Amount of Collected Cow’s Milk Decreased in 2022 (Feb 14)
The Turkish Statistical Institute announced the data on milk and dairy product production for December 2022. Accordingly, the amount of cow's milk collected by commercial dairy enterprises, which was 718.14K MT in the previous month, increased by 10.9% in December and became 796.40K MT. The amount of cow's milk collected by commercial dairy enterprises decreased by 0.4% in December compared to the same month of the previous year. The amount in question decreased by 3% in the January-December period compared to the same period in 2021 and decreased to 9.75M MT.
Sweden: The number of dairy farms halved every 10 years (Feb 17)
The agricultural authority Jordbruksverket noted the rapid structural change of Swedish milk producers over the last 40 years. According to him, the number of farms with dairy cows has been halving every decade, with a slight slowdown over the last decade. In 1982, there were 40.6K dairy farms in Sweden. 30 years ago it was 21.4K, 20 years ago it was 11.3K, and ten years ago it was around 5K. In 2019, there were almost 2.8K farms with dairy cows. According to Jordbruksverket, since 1982, 93 out of 100 dairy farms have given up this production. Over the past five years, the number of farms with dairy cows has fallen by 819 from 3,614 in 2017 to 2,795 in 2022.
China: The Chinese Authorities Want to Clone a Herd of Super Cows to Secure Milk Independence (Feb 19)
The Chinese authorities hired a team of scientists who managed to clone three high-yielding cows. Government propaganda claims that the success of the scientists is groundbreaking and will soon allow China to become independent of imports of purebred dairy cows from the West. Currently, as much as 70% of high-yielding cows are imported from abroad. The goal of the project is to build a herd of 1K "super cows" that will be able to produce 18MT of milk a year or more than 100 MT of milk in their lifetime, the state-owned newspaper Global Times reported. Cost-effective cloning 3 cloned calves were born at a center in the Ningxia region. A team of scientists from the Northwest University of Agricultural and Forestry Technology is responsible for this success.
Romania: Romanian Milk Producers Are Worried About Cheap Hungarian Milk (Feb 15)
Hungarian milk with a purchase price of less than USD 0.42/liter (HUF 150) and a fat content of 4% depresses Romanian prices. Local producers can't compete with them. They cannot hold the competition in Romania. According to Dorin Cojocaru, the president of the professional interest protection representation of Romanian milk processors (APRIL), last year was also difficult for Romanian milk producers, and this year will be the same. The reason for this is that Romania is flooded with cheap milk coming from neighboring countries at dumping prices.
Bulgaria: Bulgarian Farmer Poured Sour Milk in Front of Administration (Feb 13)
The continued rise in the final prices of milk and dairy products in Bulgaria, provided that the price of raw milk has not risen or even fallen, is speculative, partly on the part of processors and mainly traders, on February 13, reports the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR). Danail Nikolov, who became known as a farmer who poured three boxes of sour milk in front of Energo's headquarters in Varna, told about this on the air of Radio Varna. Over the past year and a half, he has reduced his herd by more than 50%, sheep from 700 to 250, cows from 70 to 50, and goats from 150 to 50. The prospects for farmers are not very bright, dairy farms are being liquidated because they are priced at or below cost. Milk processors will import and make a profit. For two decades, they have been mainly engaged in this, as a result of which dairy cattle breeding in the country is on the verge of collapse.
