By Ed Maltby, NODPA Executive Director
In reports from USDA Agricultural Marketing Service in January 2022, 3.8 billion pounds of packaged fluid milk products, both conventional and organic, were shipped by milk handlers as compared with December 2021’s total of 3.9 million pounds. The January 2022 total was 1.7 percent lower than a year earlier and the December 2021 total was 2.6 percent lower than December 2020. Estimated sales of total conventional fluid milk products decreased 1.5 percent from January 2021, and the December total was 2.5 per cent lower than December 2020. Estimated sales of total organic fluid milk products decreased 3.3 percent from a year earlier in January 2022 with a total 246 million pounds. Sales of organic retail milk of 242 million pounds in December 2021 were a decrease of 4.1 per cent over December 2020. This decrease in both years was for all products with no growth in any category.
|
Product Name |
Sales of Organic Fluid Milk |
Change from |
||
|
Dec-21 |
2021 Year to date |
Dec-20 |
Year to date |
|
|
|
Million pounds |
Percent |
||
|
Organic Whole Milk |
111 |
1256 |
-3.2 |
-1 |
|
Flavored Whole milk |
2 |
19 |
9.9 |
73 |
|
Organic Reduced Fat Milk (2%) |
82 |
954 |
-3.2 |
-3.2 |
|
Organic Low Fat Milk (1%) |
27 |
314 |
-3.7 |
-4.8 |
|
Organic Fat Free Milk Skim |
14 |
174 |
-19.9 |
-12.3 |
|
Organic Flavored Fat-Reduced Milk |
6 |
81 |
4.6 |
1 |
|
Other Fluid Organic Milk Products |
0 |
2 |
57.1 |
23.2 |
|
Total Fat Reduced Milk |
130 |
1526 |
-5 |
-4.5 |
|
Total Organic Milk Products |
242 |
2801 |
-4.1 |
-2.6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Product Name |
Sales of Organic Fluid Milk |
Change from |
||
|
Jan-22 |
2022 Year to date |
Jan-21 |
Year to date |
|
|
|
Million pounds |
Percent |
||
|
Organic Whole Milk |
113 |
113 |
0.4% |
0.4% |
|
Flavored Whole milk |
2 |
2 |
56.6% |
56.60% |
|
Organic Reduced Fat Milk (2%) |
84 |
84 |
-6.6% |
-6.6% |
|
Organic Low Fat Milk (1%) |
27 |
27 |
-5.9% |
-5.9% |
|
Organic Fat Free Milk Skim |
14 |
14 |
-7.4% |
-7.4% |
|
Organic Flavored Fat-Reduced Milk |
6 |
6 |
-9.9% |
-9.9% |
|
Other Fluid Organic Milk Products |
0 |
0 |
0.0% |
0.0% |
|
Total Fat Reduced Milk |
132 |
132 |
-3.3% |
-3.3% |
|
Total Organic Milk Products |
246 |
246 |
-3.3 |
-3.3 |
In the northeast, the utilization of organic milk in January 2022 was 7 percent below January 2021. The utilization of organic milk in the northeast was skewed with the pandemic, and the total for January 2022 was approximately 6 million pounds higher than January 2020. As we have written before, its time that we have more detail and greater information on organic dairy sales.
|
UTILIZATION OF ORGANIC FLUID MILK PRODUCTS AND CREAM BY POOL PLANTS (Million pounds) - NORTHEAST |
|
|||||
|
|
Fluid retail Organic Milk 2022 |
Fluid retail Organic Milk 2021 |
Fluid retail Organic Milk 2020 |
Increase/Decrease of 2022 over 2021 |
Increase/Decrease of 2021 over 2020 |
|
|
JANUARY |
29.14 |
31.32 |
23.93 |
-7% |
31% |
|
|
FEBRUARY |
|
31.56 |
26.69 |
|
18% |
|
|
MARCH |
|
31.87 |
27.90 |
|
14% |
|
|
APRIL |
|
28.97 |
29.35 |
|
-1% |
|
|
MAY |
|
29.72 |
28.25 |
|
5% |
|
|
JUNE |
|
28.41 |
26.90 |
|
6% |
|
|
JULY |
|
25.50 |
26.70 |
|
-4% |
|
|
AUGUST |
|
27.18 |
24.70 |
|
10% |
|
|
SEPTEMBER |
|
30.26 |
29.70 |
|
2% |
|
|
OCTOBER |
|
29.47 |
25.78 |
|
14% |
|
|
NOVEMBER |
|
31.07 |
24.47 |
|
27% |
|
|
DECEMBER |
|
31.36 |
28.13 |
|
11% |
|
|
ANNUAL |
|
356.68 |
322.50 |
|
11% |
|
The CROPP Cooperative Board of Directors passed an increase in Pay Price of $0.25/cwt per hundred pounds nationwide starting with March 2022 milk. This increase is split evenly between Butterfat and Protein in their component pricing. The Board has also decided to shrink the number of regions in the cooperative to three. That means they will have a West, Central, and East division. The Northeast pay schedule is going up half way to the New England price (12.5 cents approximately).
Maple Hill is extending the contracts for 22 of the farms they had planned to drop in June 2022. They are passing the increase in trucking and balancing on to their retail customers rather than passing it on to their farmers. They do not yet know what affect that will have on sales which will in turn affect their utilization of their milk as organic retail and their profitability.
Trucking is obviously eating away at the processors’ margins as is for any purchased feed for producers. The trucking cost is likely to improve slowly but the situation in the Balkans will make any improvement on the costs of corn and soybean very slow.
In Diane Bothfeld’s (Director of Administrative Services, IV and Dairy Policy, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets) Dairy Summary, she reports that the USDA has changed its website and the two graphs below show possible margins for 2022. At this time, the predicted margins for all of 2022 looks to be above the $9.50 trigger level for USDA's Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) risk management program. The sign-up period for 2022 ends on March 25, 2022. Be aware that conventional milk prices are high but so are feed prices, which may impact these predictions.
The graph below is from March 4 and 11, 2022:
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