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Record ’22 prices did not equal record profitability   

A dairy economist says 2022 was a year of many records for prices.

Nate Donnay with StoneX tells Brownfield, “We had record high milk prices, Class I, Class II, Class III, Class IV, farmgate prices hit new record highs this year.”

He says while cheese and nonfat dry milk prices did not hit a record, all categories were high at the same time which was supportive for milk prices.  But costs were also high.

“It’s certainly been painful to pull out the checkbook and write checks for some of those inputs,” he says.  “Overall, at least in the first half of the year, it looks like the record high milk prices offset the higher feed costs, and margins were good.”

A five-dollar drop in milk prices during the second half of 2022 and consistently high feed costs Donnay says unfortunately have been pressuring margins and will continue to do so in the first part of next year.