US milk production for 2015 is up 1.3% on 2014 levels, the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows.
The 2015 annual production of milk for the United States during 2015 was 209 billion pounds, 1.3% above 2014 production.
Revisions to 2014 production increased the annual total 8m pounds and revised 2015 production was up 139m pounds from last month’s USDA publication.
Looking at milk production per cow in the US, it averaged at 22,393lbs/cow for 2015, which is an increase of 134lbs on 2014 levels.
The average annual rate of milk production per cow has increased 12.6%Â from 2006, according to the data.
Meanwhile, the average number of dairy cows on farms in the US during 2015 was 9.32m head, which is an increase of 0.6% on 2014.
Milk production in the US doesn’t appear to be slowing with January 2016 milk production up 0.3% on the corresponding month in 2015. Milk production in the 23 major States during January totalled 16.6 billion pounds.
Production per cow in the 23 major States averaged 1,923lbs/cow for January, 4lbs above January 2015.
The USDA has said that this is the highest production per cow for the month of January since the 23 State series began in 2003.
The number of dairy cows on US farms in the 23 major States was 8.63m head, an increase of 6,000 head on January 2015.
However, while the January figure is up on the corresponding month in 2014, the number of dairy cows was 11,000 head less than in December 2015.
The USDA’s December revised production, at 16.4 billion pounds, was up 0.7% from December 2014.
The December revision represented an increase of 19m pounds or 0.1% from last month’s preliminary production estimate.
