Thursday, December 1st 2016
Courtesy of Brownfield Ag News
A dairy policy analyst expects milk prices to go up in 2017. University of Wisconsin Professor Mark Stephenson tells Brownfield milk prices started to recover in May. He says, “We think that we’re on the upswing of that and that it’s genuine and legitimate, and barring some kind of wholesale world collapse like we had back in 2009, I don’t think that we’re going to see these prices retrench. I think we’ll see them continue to climb through 2017.” Stephenson says demand is strong and the supply is tightening. “Large countries that have demanded dairy products including China, and for us personally, Mexico, demand has picked up quite a bit in the last several months, and other major exporters including European Union, New Zealand, and Australia have been down in milk production fairly significantly.” Stephenson says it only takes a one or two percent change in world milk production to have a major impact on dairy prices. He expects a big surge in dairy prices but isn’t sure if it will happen in late 2017 or early 2018.