Dairy Heifer Sticker Shock and Sugar Exports Forecast Higher

**Dairy farmers looking to buy young heifers to replace their older milking cows should get used to the sticker shock for a while, as the nation’s inventory has plummeted to a 20-year low.

Reduced supplies of dairy heifers could limit the nation’s ability to produce more milk and reversing the trend could take at least two to three years.

How soon farmers respond will depend on market conditions for milk and beef.

**U.S. sugar exports for fiscal year 2024 are forecast to be the largest they’ve been in six years, according to the USDA’s latest WASDE report.

About 88% of that is expected to go to Mexico, where sugar exports had fallen to a 15-year low.

The Economic Research Service says this forecast will put

U.S. sugar exports to Mexico on par with those from 2008-2013 when the North American Free Trade Agreement was active.

**The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was unhappy with remarks by Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack on California’s Prop 12 during a Senate Ag Committee hearing.

ASPCA’s Kara Shannon says it’s alarming to see Secretary Vilsack double down on his inaccurate comments about Prop 12, furthering animal agriculture’s false narrative about the impact of cruel confinement in cages and crates.