Milk production is down in the eastern half of the U.S., tightening markets nationwide as surplus milk is pulled eastward from western dairies. Ted, T3 and Anna discuss what it could mean for stressed dairy farmers.

Also, we observe a surging nonfat market that is sending Class IV milk prices upward. How high will Class IV get? And what will that mean for Class I prices?

Anna: Welcome to The Milk Check, a podcast from T.C. Jacoby and Company, where we share market insights and analysis with dairy farmers in mind. Today is January 10and we want to talk about where the milk has gone as we've noticed a decline in production and a shift in distribution, particularly in the Northeast. So let's jump in right there.

Ted: Yeah. Well, where is all the milk? The milk is alive and kicking because we're not seeing any great reduction in the cows. We're listing dairymen who are we're going out of business in every publication you read. Large and small are going out of business. Small more than large but still are giving it up, but the cows aren't disappearing. They're going to the neighbors for the most part. There is a slight increase in slaughter. I'll give the point, okay. But basically most dairymen are using up the silage they've got by keeping the additional cows.

T3: That is going on. And the reason it's going on is because the cattle market is crap. You can't get anything for your cows right now. It's about as low as it's been in probably two decades.

Ted: That's right. So when it comes time to talk about what the prices are going to be, you know, it's going to involve a lot of ex-cows. Until we see less cows, you know, it's not going to be changed much.

T3: Adding from a milk production standpoint, you're right. Well, I think it's clear that one of the big problems right now that dairy farmers who want to exit the business have is the cattle market is so bad that there's no value for your cows. And as a result, it's actually forcing farmers who want to go out of the business to stay in the business or it's forcing banks who want to foreclose to not foreclose because there's no value there, if they do it. But one thing that is going on is you're getting an increasing percentage of farmers who are breeding their Holstein cows with Angus cows and literally breeding for beef cows.

You may be struggling to sell cows out of the business, milking cows out of the business. But there's an active reduction in the heifer pipeline going on. Now, we're three years away from that affecting this market. But maybe there's some long-term hope there that because of this market is so bad, they don't even want to invest in future Holstein cows. They're literally breeding the Holstein cows with Angus cows for beef and not making dairy cows.

Ted: I wonder if there isn't sex semen to go for male instead of female. Interesting question. But you have to ask somebody who knows.

T3: I would agree. I wouldn't even try to answer that. But I do think that one of the reasons that this trend has started is because of sex semen. I mean, once you got to the point where, you know, 65%, 70% of all the calves are female, it was inevitable that you had a problem with too many cows coming into the marketplace and you really have to do something, too many heifers. You're going to have to do something about it by breeding for beef cows that counteracts that problem.

Ted: It'll be down the road where we could see a real spike, if we run out of heifers. I think it's just, what, two years to bring heifer into the...

T3: About 24 months.

Ted: Yeah, and right now you're looking at 2021 before you're going to look at any efforts coming in. 2022, really. So we could be looking at some big numbers between now and then sometime, if we run short of cows. However,