Inside Milk
Winter weather leads to chaos in American dairy chain
Where many Dutch people could be found en masse on natural ice two weeks ago for the first time in a long time, the Americans experienced extreme winter weather last week. In addition to beautiful pictures, it also causes a lot of problems in the American dairy sector: from bad road surfaces to power cuts at the processors and a shortage of feed.
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Considerable winter precipitation fell in the United States during the week of February 15. This not only poses problems for the average American, it also creates challenging conditions for many dairy farmers and processors. Although details are not yet described and the exact losses can only be assessed after some time, the US Department of Agriculture already says that the impact is significant. The problems are particularly extreme in the state of Texas.
Biggest Problems in Texas
Many reports of milk dumping have been made in Texas. The dairy farms are said to be dumping at least $8 million worth of milk per day because the factories cannot generate enough power to process it all due to the snowfall and cold. This in turn causes problems at supermarkets that do not receive enough product, causing problems with the food supply. These problems seem to be even greater than at the start of the corona crisis, when Americans were in full hoarding and many shelves were also empty.
Many dairy farmers in the area are also afraid of having to run out of feed supplies. Considering the fact that feed costs are high and there is not much roughage available anymore, this could be disastrous for many dairy farms in the region. In the meantime, more than 30.000 animals in Texas and eastern New Mexico have not survived the winter period.
According to insiders, the loss in the state of Texas could amount to millions or even billions of dollars. Electricity costs alone amount to almost $10.000 for several American households. This is because many have turned the heating on high to prevent frozen pipes. More than 1,8 million Americans were without power at the beginning of the week, including thousands of dairy farmers.
Milk not collected
Many problems were also experienced in the Pacific Northwest due to the winter weather. The dairy chain in the area was disrupted due to power outages and problems during transport, such as stuck trucks due to poor road surfaces. Because these trucks could not reach the dairy farms, some dairy farmers in this region were also forced to dump the milk. A lot of milk was also lost in the Upper Midwest due to the cold weather conditions.
It remains to be seen whether the winter weather conditions will ultimately have an effect on the milk supply in the country and milk prices. The damage will first have to be assessed. Lower production seems obvious.