New York milk production rises nearly 2 percent

New York dairy farms produced nearly 1.27 billion pounds of milk in September, up almost 1.8 percent from more than 1.24 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 2,015 pounds in September, up 1.5 percent from 1,985 pounds in the year-ago month.

The number of milk cows on farms in New York state totaled 628,000 head in September, up 0.3 percent from 626,000 head in September 2020, NASS reported.

Farmers saw little to no change in milk prices in the latest report. New York dairy producers in August were paid an average of $18.20 per hundredweight, up 10 cents from July, but unchanged from August 2020.

In neighboring Pennsylvania, dairy farms produced 798 million pounds of milk in September, down more than 2 percent from a year earlier.