South Dakota Gets Less Milk Per Cow But Increased Dairy Herd and Total Production

On the good side of the farm report, South Dakota made a little more milk last month (assuming you like milk and cheese and the udder good things that flow from dairies). But while dairies across the nation produced more milk with fewer cows than they did last year, we had to add to our dairy herd to increase production:

South Dakota’s milk production per cow last month was 1,830 pounds, down 1.3% from April 2018. The other 22 big dairy states averaged just over 2,000 pounds of milk per cow, a 1.0% increase over April 2018. Nonetheless, South Dakota’s total milk production rose 1.8% from April 2018 to April 2019, thanks apparently to the 3.3% increase in the size of our dairy herd, to 124,000 head. The other 22 big dairy states decreased their aggregate dairy herd by 0.7% while increasing total production 0.3%.