Farmers Dumped a Lot of Milk

Farmers Dumped a Lot of Milk

Rick Worthington
Rick Worthington
Farmers Dumped a Lot of Milk

As we have reported on several occasions, the Pandemic hit the dairy industry especially hard. Some farmers were actually forced to dump milk when processing plants hit capacity in terms of storage space. With no place to store additional product, farmers had no choice.

Amanda Durow is a dairy producer and says, they now have an idea of how much milk had to be dumped.

“The volume of milk in April specifically was 187 million pounds, or 22 million gallons, and I would point out that the northeast federal order reported dumping about 15 million gallons of milk in the month. But the 22 million gallons of milk dumped only represent about two percent of April’s milk production from these four federal orders.”

And that is a bunch of milk... and it represents a ton of money us milk producers lost. And while dairy is moving again, farmers are still feeling the impact of COVID-19.

“The impact of dumping milk was felt widespread across the industry. Most dairy producers had a COVID deduction in their May milk checks, with some seeing a $2 per hundredweight decrease. Furthermore, many cooperatives and processors are asking their dairy producers to cut milk production. In an environment of volatile dairy prices, dairy farmers are being asked to voluntarily cut their paycheck up to 15 percent. I know no one that would like to give up two months of their salary like dairy farmers are being asked.”

She says the one-two punch of milk dumping and panic buying made some unique news headlines

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