New York milk production falls nearly 2 percent

New York dairy farms produced more than 1.27 billion pounds of milk in December, down 1.7 percent from nearly 1.3 billion pounds in the year-prior month, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) recently reported.

Milk production per cow in the state averaged 2,055 pounds in December, off 0.7 percent from 2,070 pounds in the year-ago month.

The number of milk cows on farms in New York state totaled 620,000 head in December, down 1 percent from 626,000 head in December 2020, NASS reported.

Milk prices rose in the latest month for which data is available. New York dairy producers in November were paid an average of $21.30 per hundredweight, up $1.40 from October, and up $1.30 from November 2020.

In neighboring Pennsylvania, dairy farms produced 834 million pounds of milk in December, down 2.4 percent from a year earlier.