One series of interest to dairy analysts is annual milk price received by dairy producers.
USDA publishes annual All Milk price for United States in their February (preliminary) and July (final) editions of Agricultural Prices.
At quickstats.nass.usda.gov this is the price that is listed under:
program=SURVEY
sector=ANIMALS & PRODUCTS
group=DAIRY
commodity=MILK
category=PRICE RECEIVED
data_item=MILK – PRICE RECEIVED, MEASURED IN $ / CWT
period_type=ANNUAL
period=YEAR
USDA does not publish annual all milk prices for states, though one can calculate it using simple monthly averages. The series started in 1996. UDM SeriesID for this series is 10, our name is “Milk, All, Price”, the data can be found in the table UDM_Report_Agricultural_
USDA also publishes an annual milk price in the report Milk Production, Disposition, and Income which is issued once per year, in April.
In that publication, USDA reports “All milk average returns per cwt”, calculated as total cash receipts from marketings divided by total marketed milk. The series started in 1980, and is available for all 50 states.
In quickstats, this series can be found using the parameters:
program = SURVEY
sector = ANIMALS & PRODUCTS
group = DAIRY
commodity = MILK
category = PRICE RECEIVED
data_item = MILK – PRICE RECEIVED, MEASURED IN $ / CWT
geographic_level= STATE
period_type = ANNUAL
period = MARKETING YEAR
The only difference vs. all milk price is the PERIOD which is equal to “Marketing Year” in this case. The time periods actually coincide, both reports calculate prices on calendar year basis. The reason it’s set here as marketing year is primarily to comply with Quickstats menu structure.
UDM SeriesID for this series is 70572, and our name is “Combined Marketings of Milk and Cream, All Milk, Average Returns per Cwt”. This series is available in “UDM_Report_Milk_Production_
Due to slightly different calculation methodologies, the “All Milk Price” and “All milk average returns per cwt” do not exactly match. The average difference between these two series is very small though, with “all milk average returns per cwt” on average 5 cents higher since 1996.
