As the industry preps for the holiday buying season and looks forward to 2020, some abnormal market conditions—both domestically and internationally—caught our attention.

Ted, T3 and Anna discuss market anomalies that might set the tone for markets in the new year.

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're going to talk about dairy markets today but this isn't just another discussion of markets. That's because there are several anomalies we're watching that we think will impact the way markets behave through the end of this year and into 2020. Ted, let's start with you. Milk production in Europe has caught your attention. Why?

Ted: As far as Europe is concerned, production seems to be starting to come up and the question is why. The reason is the Dollar has been so strong and the Euro has been relatively weak. Their production costs have reflected that also. We look at currency valuation as—we have in the past—we've looked at it as what's the cost of putting milk powder into China or the Philippines or wherever. And the Euro is one value, the Dollar is another value and it reflects on the landed price of the product.

Well, if you look at the mailbox price in Europe relative to the mailbox price in the United States, the European prices, you know, 15%, 20% lower than ours depending on the country and so on. So what that means is that our currency valuation is a hell of a lot more...

T3: It's having a negative influence on our ability to export.

Ted: Well, it reflects on the producers' costs in a way that we really haven't acknowledged up to now. Their cost of production has got to be a lot lower than ours in order for them to be increasing production at the price level that they have. Their production's going up, not down and these are basically smaller dairymen than ours, less efficient than ours. And their production is starting to bottom out and go up.

What I'm conjecturing on this is that...or concluding on this is that the value of the currency affects their production costs in ways that we haven't really come to grips with. You know, we tend to think in terms of landed price of product somewhere in the world but it also affects their production cost. If their production costs were quid pro quo with ours, they wouldn't be increasing production. Europe is a lot bigger than we are and if we're gonna be competing for markets particularly in the trade discussions, with the trade discussions going on and so on we're gonna be competing for markets. In this kind of environment we're gonna have a tough time doing it.

T3: I think we were...I think last year feed quality was very poor and I think this year feed quality is better. So when you're talking about a 1% change in milk production levels, feed quality is enough to change that dial about 1%. I think the more relevant question may be, "is it sustainable?" And I haven't heard anyone that strongly believes European milk production is going to be growing at that, you know, 2%, 3%, 4% rate that it has in the various years, in the last five years because as you say, I don't think the numbers are there.

Ted: Well, maybe not. But, you know, we also have to factor in our feed quality which right now is on the edge. This is one of the anomalies. We have not had a good growing season. If we're looking at our frost here in the northern...in the upper Midwest in the next week or two, it's gonna greatly affect the feed quality for the next year.

Anna: Dairy markets move on an international scale. Buyers and sellers thrive when they think globally. Put T.C. Jacoby and Co.'s 70 years of market expertise to work for your organization. If you're looking for someone to help you market your products or you're lo...