Dairy Demand Keeps Pace With Rising Milk Production

ZISK
6 days ago
1 min read

April milk production numbers are in and have increased 2.8 percent from April 2025. Milk production totaled 19.2 billion pounds for April and after March revisions, March was up 71 million pounds or 0.4 percent from last month’s estimates. Production did decrease slightly from last month, however still well above last year.

The number of cows has also increased above even the highest quarter of 2025 coming in at 9,618,000 head. That is trending 120,000 above last year’s average. Milk production per cow is 6,093 pounds for first quarter, close to last year’s average. The combination of the two data points leads to milk production totaling 58,598 million pounds for the first quarter of 2026. That is 3 percent higher than first quarter of 2025.

With all of the extra milk production we have seen in recent years, the question is, where does all the milk go? Demand has steadily increased with the higher availability of milk supply. On a milk-fat basis, exports in the first 3 months of 2026 totaled 5,001 million pounds, about 40.6 percent higher than last year. On a skim-solids basis, exports totaled 12,190 million pounds, about 5.7 percent higher than the same period for 2025.

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