Interviewed: In a May 6 interview on Wisconsin Public Television’s “Here and Now,” University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural and applied economics professor Brian Gould pointed to several factors driving the slumping prices. Most importantly, Wisconsin’s dairy production has increased about 30 percent since 2004, and dairy producers in the state have kept on increasing that after having a very good year in 2014. So, when supply outstrips demand, a lot of milk ends up sitting around in the form of cheese, butter, and in powdered form. More specifically, most of Wisconsin’s milk goes straight to cheese production, so as goes the price of cheese, so does the fortune of the state’s dairy industry as a whole.
Mark Stephenson, the director of the Center for Dairy Profitability at UW-Madison, told WPR’s “Central Time” in August 2015, when milk prices were already falling, that Australia and New Zealand also are increasing production, contributing to “a worldwide oversupply of milk.” The UW-Extension Dairy Team has also been tracking the falling prices, among other developments in the state’s dairy industry.