January 2015 Dairy Situation & Outlook

Professor Bob Cropp’s January 2015 Dairy Situation & Outlook full report is available for download from UW Understanding Dairy Markets.  The following is a portion of that report:

Dairy exports for the year will likely be lower than 2014. World dairy product prices appear to have bottomed out with recent Global Dairy Trade showing some strength in prices. Milk prices are also much lower in the major exporting countries—New Zealand, Australia and the EU-28. New Zealand is also experiencing dry weather, which if it persists, will reduce their milk production in the months ahead. So the increase in world milk production will not be as high as it was in 2014. As accumulated dairy stocks are worked down, dairy imports are expected to pick up the last half of the year, particularly in China, but at a more modest pace.

In summary, as the growth in milk production slows and dairy exports improve for the last half of the year, we can expect milk prices to improve. But, unless milk production slows more than now anticipated and/or dairy exports improve more than anticipated, milk prices will average much lower than 2014.

Source:uwex.edu