America’s Dairyland stayed true to its name in 2016 as the state set another record for total milk production. The latest government figures from the USDA confirmed that Wisconsin produced 30.1 billion pounds of milk last year, just over one percent more than the previous record of 29 billion pounds harvested in 2015. Milk per cow also rose to an all-time high of 23,552 pounds, up 855 pounds from the year earlier.
Cash receipts from milk marketings during the past year totaled $5.01 billion, which dropped just over $100 million from 2015.
As of January 1, there were 9,304 licensed milk cow operations in the state. That was down 391 from a year ago, and the second consecutive year that the herd count was below the 10,000 mark in generations.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin’s overall livestock inventory also increased slightly last year. As of January 1, about 3.55 million head of cattle were counted in the state.
The number of milk cow numbers remained unchanged at year’s end at just below 1.28 million head–keeping Wisconsin second behind California for number of milk cows.
http://www.wisconsinagconnection.com/story-state.php?Id=503&yr=2017