With the exception of butter, milk futures and cash dairy prices were all down again on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Monday.
The price of barrel cheese at the CME spot dairy auction fell by 8.5 cents/lb to $1.8425. Block cheese fell 3.25 cents to $2.20 per pound. With a settlement price of $2.90/lb, butter had an impressive 8-cent gain. At the end of the day, the price of whey was $0.44/lb and the price of nonfat dry milk was $1.4275/lb.
Milk futures on the CME Class III market were under pressure all day. At $21.25/cwt, December ended 22 cents lower. The average price for the first half of 2023, from January to June, was $20.06/cwt. Between 8 and 20 cents less for the second half of the year. On Monday, the price of Class IV stayed the same or went down a little bit.
Monday saw the release of the USDA’s Milk Production Report for October 2022. The U.S. milking herd was estimated at 9.418 million heads, an increase of 1,000 from the previous month. The September data was amended 6,000 head higher to reflect a 7,000 cow increase month-over-month. Compared to the previous year, the 2022 herd has grown by 31,000 animals. Milk Production as a whole was 18,850 billion pounds, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year, which was somewhat behind the previous couple of months but in line with forecasts. Southwest (+3.2%) led regional comparisons year-over-year, followed by Midwest (+2.2%), Pacific Northwest (+1.7%), Northeast (+1.3%), and Middle East (+0.2%). California lagged behind at -0.5%.
