The United States Department of Agriculture recently reported that milk production in the top 23 U.S. states during December was up 2.4 percent.
Texas is the sixth largest dairy-producing state, and gaining fast on Pennsylvania, who is currently number five.
A steady increase that Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen, said will continue to grow as the industry gets closer to the 100 million gallons per month mark.
“We are one of the few places in the country where there’s expansion happening in dairy plants. Nowhere else is seeing new growth and development of dairy plants like we are in Texas,” Turley said.
This trend is due to the potential for future growth led by positive prices and production in 2016, Turley, an Erath County Farm Bureau member, said.
“Texas is just one of the places in the country that can still have wide open spaces and resources available for additional production,” he said. “I think we’ll see Texas producers continue to advance in the industry and be able to produce more milk per cow.”
Turley noted that although the Lone Star State has fewer than 400 dairy farms, it won’t stop Texas dairymen from staying competitive.
“There are some concerns with the new president not working with the Trans-Pacific Partnership as we were hoping to try and increase our exports some, but we’re fortunate that we have a growing state and our fluid milk and cheese sales continue to be strong,” Turley said. “However, the outlook for 2017 is positive on pricing, as stocks and sales are pointing toward a good year for milk prices and products.”
Another phenomenon helping increase dairy sales—Greek yogurt. Texas dairy farmers are seeing a big increase as consumers are reaching in the dairy case for Greek yogurts, according to Turley.
For 2017, USDA additionally raised the forecast for milk cows by 5,000 to 9.365 million head. Higher milk prices and relatively low feed costs are expected to encourage greater expansion of herds.
Source: texasfarmbureau.org
