June production jump

Headline U.S. milk production for June was up 3.3%, which was much stronger than my 2% forecast, and given the sharp price drops we saw in the dairy futures after the report was released, production was higher than the market was expecting. With higher fat and protein in the milk, component-adjusted production was up 5% from last year. These numbers sound very bearish, and they are, but they also require some context and caution before you start extrapolating them forward.

The biggest caution is that we were lapping over a 1.7% drop in production in June 2023, which was the largest percentage drop that we’ve seen in more than 20 years. Bird flu was widespread in Idaho and Colorado last June, with production down more than 3% in both states. Production was also running very weak in California last June, down 2.1%. If you compare June 2025 to June 2023, production was only up 1.5%, which sounds much more reasonable than the +3.3% comparison to 2024.

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Nate Donnay

July 28, 2025

hoards.com