Improved Yield Per Cow to Drive Increased US Milk Production
US - The US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) long-term agricultural projections forecast milk production by 2025 to increase to 112bn litres, up almost 23 per cent on 2015 levels, AHDB Dairy has reported.
8 March 2016
1 minute read
The majority of this increase is expected to come from productivity improvements, with milk production per cow increasing to 12,000 litres, an increase of 2,200 litres per cow compared to 2015.
The national herd is forecast to remain at about 9.3m head until 2020 before expanding slightly thereafter, coinciding with an expectation of milk prices starting to increase steadily.
Looking back at the same report released in February 2006, the national herd was forecast to contract by 365k head between 2005 and 2015. When, in actual fact, the herd increased by 270k head during this period.
Milk per cow was slightly lower than what was predicted, giving rise to overall milk production being almost 5 per cent higher than what was previously forecast. While milk prices during this period were, for the most part, higher than what was expected in 2006.
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