January 2015 Dairy Situation & Outlook

Jan 27, 2015

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

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.