A little pressure on the dairy futures on Monday on news heavy rains have been falling in New Zealand. The March contract declined 49 cents, April was down 45 cents, and July lost 30 cents. Just over a week ago the near-month Class III futures jumped the daily limit when Fonterra announced its dairy product production would be down 3.3 percent this year because of drought in New Zealand.
Also adding some pressure, U.S. milk production is running above year-ago levels and U.S. cheese production topped a billion pounds in December, the first time ever that cheese production was above a billion pounds in one month.
The monthly U.S. World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates come out Tuesday.
Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has accepted 2 requests for export assistance to sell 220,462 pounds of Cheddar cheese and 1.102 million pounds of 82% butter to customers in the Middle East and Central America. The product will be delivered in February through August 2015.
Year-to-date, CWT has assisted member cooperatives in selling 4.641 million pounds of cheese and 15.510 million pounds of butter to fourteen countries on four continents.
Source: Brownfield News