contents

• Background
• Market outlook
• Policy
• Trade

features
Economic Effects of U.S. Dairy Policy and Alternative Approaches to Milk Pricing shows that the effects of dairy programs on markets are modest and that current dairy programs are limited in their ability to change the longterm economic viability of dairy farms. Other forces—technology, changing consumer demand, and changes in the marketing and processing sectors—while difficult to measure, are likely to have more impact. (This file is 1.5 MB in size and may take time to download.)

Monthly Milk Cost of Production Estimates are available starting from January 2003. Congress included language in USDA's fiscal year (FY) 2003 appropriation that strongly urged USDA to make available monthly milk costs of production (COP) in various areas of the United States. To comply with this request, ERS has begun reporting monthly milk COP by State, where sufficient data support a State estimate.

recommended readings
Annual summaries of the forces that shaped the animal products industries during the previous year and how those forces are expected to affect the current year's outlook are available from the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook page. Instead of providing a separate report covering all the commodities once a year, we will release summaries for the various commodities in the newsletter as information becomes available.

Current World Production, Market, and Trade Reports provide information and data on world markets and trade for dairy, livestock, and poultry.

Characteristics and Production Costs of U.S. Dairy Operations presents findings from the 2000 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), the most recent national survey of milk producers. Milk producers in the West had a significant cost advantage over producers in other regions in 2000 because their operations were much larger. Operations with 500 or more milk cows had significantly lower total operating and ownership costs, indicative of the economies of size experienced by larger operations.

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recommended data products
Most Frequently Requested Tables from Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook contain data on milk and dairy product supply and utilization. These popular tables update most of the key data in the latest Dairy Yearbook and are in Excel format.

Dairy Yearbook presents annual data on production, supply, use of milk and manufactured dairy products; also includes wholesale and retail price indexes, prices received by farmers, milk production costs, and regional shares of U.S. milk production.

our newsletter
Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook provides key dairy data, market outlook, and forecasts; issued each month.

related briefing rooms
Animal production and marketing issues
Agricultural baseline projections
Farm income and costs
Farm structure
Farm and commodity policy
U.S. agricultural trade

related links
Agricultural Marketing Service. Information on Federal milk marketing orders, grading, dairy market news, marketing and economic research, promotion and research, standardization, and Federal rulemaking.

National Agricultural Statistics Service. Historical data, publications, and the 2002 Census of Agriculture.

World Agricultural Outlook Board. World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports and Agricultural Outlook Forum speeches.

See all related links...

for more information, contact: James J. Miller
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: October 18, 2004