Fewer Cows, More Milk and Lower Real Prices MP: The Tableau
interactive graph above presents an amazing story of increased
productivity in milk production over time, from an average of
5,410 pounds per cow in 1924 to 20,079 pounds in 2009, for a
percentage increase of 271%. Or we could say that today's cows
produce 3.7 times as much milk as cows in the 1920s. It's also
true that we are producing record levels of milk in the U.S.
with record low numbers of cows, and the significant
improvements in milk productivity have dramatically lowered the
real price of milk over time. Wholesale milk prices (adjusted
for inflation) today are about 75% lower than in the early
1930s, less than half the prices of the early 1980s, and are now
close to the lowest level in history. This dramatic increase in
the productivity of milk production is probably similar to
productivity gains in most other U.S. agricultural products, and
explains why we only spend 9.6% of our disposable income today
on food (2008 is most recent year), c