?June is dairy month.? You are probably hearing that a lot on your local radio stations, and along your Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network affiliates. It is the time we celebrate all that is good in the dairy industry. We definitely need to get back into thinking positive about the industry. New data came out that suggests that April was not dairy month.
The photos of producers dumping milk down the drain are some of the lasting images that will haunt us from the COVID-19 outbreak. The industry lost so much demand with the shutting down of foodservice industries and restaurants. However, you saw demand skyrocket on the consumer side. It created a sharp contrast of two markets and let people wondering why the milk for foodservice could not just be moved into the consumer side. Amanda Durow is a dairy producer and a Vice President with CoBank. She said the juxtaposition of the markets created an interesting one-two punch.
Durow says the seasonality of milk production also played a role in this unfortunate situation.
The economic hit to the dairy industry was huge. This is an industry that has been facing challenge after challenge for the past several years. Durow says that the effects of this milk dumping are still being felt two months later.
April saw a loss of an estimated 22 million gallons of milk dumped down the drain.
