Recent advances in gene editing technology have made the production of dairy proteins in lab settings viable and potentially scalable. If the techniques can scale cost-effectively, and if consumers buy in, the dairy industry as we know it will change.

Ted, T3 and Anna discuss what's at stake and ask: Should dairy farmers be worried?

Anna: Welcome to "The Milk Check," a podcast from T.C. Jacoby & Co., where we share market insights and analysis with dairy farmers in mind. We want to discuss something today that we think will cost significant issues for the dairy industry in the coming years. You've probably heard of Burger King's Impossible Whopper, beef made in a lab, not from a cow. Well, it's happening in dairy too. But before we discuss milk without a cow, let's spend a few minutes on markets and pricing. Over the last several months, we've predicted that prices would continue to strengthen. Since we last spoke, persistent wet weather across the country has made it very tough going for farmers getting crops planted.

Ted: Looking at the pricing today, I think we're on a slow trajectory up. I think it's gonna continue for a period of years. I don't see a change even next year and next spring. I think we may have a little bit of cycling. But given the crop situation, and so on, and the forage situation, 2020 looks like a continued strong year. Do I see an explosion? No, but a steady move up. The butter fat situation, probably, is not gonna be as explosive as we thought before, because I noticed an article come through the other day, that the average test is now reaching 3.8, the standard of identity on milk is 3.67.

So, it's almost 1.3% up. Imagine what a big difference that's gonna make for the demand from ice cream, and cream cheese, and butter, and so on, is concerned. So, I suppose we'll see. Do you think we'll break $20 by the end of the year on the Class III price? I doubt it, but I think we could come fairly close. I think $19 is probably doable. That would mean cheese at $1.90 at some point, maybe in September, October.

T3: I'm less bullish cheese in Class III than I am Class IV, because I think the continued lack of growth in the milk supply is going to affect the Class IV market more than the Class III market. I think the cheese plants will get their milk. But there’ll be some Class IV that won't. I'll add this to it, though. What I think is going on with the weather right now, and how wet it is, and how much people are struggling to get corn into the fields and things like that. It's already had its effect, and it will continue to have its effect.

You may not see the effect of it in milk prices, or I should say in milk production, before this year's harvest. So, between now and September, I don't think you'll see much. But that higher feed cost may force some dairy farmers who are on the bubble out of the business. So, it may increase or continue to support, even at higher prices, the exodus of dairy farmers we've been seeing over the past couple of years. And so, I would say that it does have a bullish effect on 2020.

Ted: The slaughter numbers that I've been following for the last couple of months, we were at about 70,000 per week, now it's 58, 59, 57.

T3: A lot of that is seasonal, though.

Ted: It is seasonal. But the bottom hasn’t fallen out of it. Even with the increase in price, we've seen the Class III price and the blend prices go up a couple of bucks, a hundredweight. Big numbers. And still the slaughter numbers are staying up there. It sort of follows along with the predictions that we've been hearing, and that the smaller dairymen are, given the good job market and so on, are going into a different line of work.

Anna: I think the really small guys are, but we say that small farms are leaving, and I think that that's true,