U.S. Dairy Herd Increases, Milk Production is Up 1.8% Since Last Year

U.S. farmers added 74,000 head of milk to the dairy herd since July 2016, helping increase total milk production by 1.8% in the last year.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), there were 9.4 million cows in milk during July, just 1,000 head fewer than the previous month. Per cow production averaged 1,940 lb. in July, an increase of 20 lb. from the previous year.

Overall milk production in the U.S. reached 18.2 billion lb. in July 2017.

Top 23 Dairy States Producing Even More Milk

USDA’s data indicates the 23 major dairy states accounted for 17.2 billion lb. of production last month, an increase of 1.9% from the previous July.

Production per cow in the 23 major states averaged 1,969 lb., rising 21 lb. from July 2016. The USDA says “this is the highest production per cow for the month of July since the 23 State series began in 2003.”

The 23 major states saw most of the growth in herd total with 72,000 head added from the same time last year. This July the herd total in the 23 major states reached 8.73 million cows, but it was still a decrease of just under 1,000 from June 2017.

Revised production for June shows milk production at 16.9 billion lb. in the 23 major states. It is an increase of 1.7% from last year. The revision for June 2017 was because of a 5 million lb. or less than 0.1% increase from last month’s estimate by USDA.