Dairy Outlook Improving

 The outlook on dairy appears to be improving…slowly...but after the last year any progress at all is welcome. I’m David Sparks and I’ll be right back. Here’s a sobering fact about the dairy industry. Only months ago, dairy producers were slaughtering an average of 50,000 dairy cows a week because a milk glut made it impossible to sell their milk for what it cost to produce. A dairyman who has 1,100 dairy cows lost $700,000 last year. It was the first time in his life in the dairy business that he had not made money.

 Now, however, the tide seems to be changing to the extent that dairy people may be at least not losing money on the milk they produce. It’s not a great business model to break even but it beats the pants off of losing money. Here’s dairy spokesperson Brent Olmstead: “The price of milk has been going up as has the price of cheese, which is 30-40 cents higher than it was last year at this time. With the increase there are some dairies that are at break even point and some that are rapidly approaching break even. So dairy producers are jumping up and down? No they’re just not crying in your coffee as much. There’s another expression, crying over spilled milk. I didn’t want to go there.”