From Milk Production To Milk Price

When I went to work for the farmer down the road the other day he informed me that his bulk tank had overflown that morning. He was pretty excited I think, even though an overflowing bulk tank presents it's own problems.
I mentioned our neighbor's good fortune at the dinner table and my dad told us that we almost had our tank overflow back in 2009. We were 100 lbs. short of spilled milk. ....and one or two cows could create 100 lbs. of milk in one day! That's the kind of spilled milk a farmer doesn't exactly cry over. A pretty good problem to have, indeed!
That started the conversation on milk production. In 2009 we had the most cows milking (something like 130) and the most milk being shipped off our farm... and that year was a record lows for milk prices and record highs for feed prices. A lot of farmers went out of business that year, and if they didn't go out of business they went in the red. Murphy's law, it would seem for us.

Here's a really old picture of Courtney & I milking cows back in '09!

Lately, it seems, things have been balancing out. Feed prices are coming back down, much to the disappointment of the crop farmers and fellows who've invested lots of time and money in the grain industry and the joy of those who have to buy the stuff. Milk prices are still too low. Maybe they'll always be too low? Those of us who dairy farm sometimes wonder who decides we should sell our milk for next to nothing.
...that being said, an unusual turn of events puts hope in our hearts once again. The CME is showing promising futures lately. The December milk price has been rising daily and January and February are going up as well. The months of January and February are normally accompanied by the lowest milk prices of the year and the futures for these months are going up as well.

My Dad told me that he thought the reason that the prices were going up is because there is a lot of milk being exported (to countries like China and so on).

I must tell you about the CME.... the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. This is like the lottery... except for farmers. As a gambler will eagerly watch for the winning lottery numbers you can find most farmers keeping a close eye on market prices of the dairy industry. Whether by way of radio or by paper or by internet (when I was milking cows at the neighbors at 5am I caught the local farm talk show... and the last thing they covered before the station switched to the morning music was the latest market prices).  
If you ever want to take a peak at the "farmer lottery" you can check out the CME Class III Milk Futures.

I suppose it's only natural that I blog about farming and milk more than usual. Milk on the brain, maybe? Haha! Milking three times a day will do that to a person. ;) Just so ya know, we farmers are always thankful for our loyal supporters! Those of you who regularly make trips to the dairy department in your grocery stores, who take interest in our work, who encourage and enable us to keep working the long hours. If it weren't for you we wouldn't be doing what we do.

Until next time,
Mary the Milkmaid