The latest US milk production data shows the first sign that US dairy farmers are getting the message - the world has enough milk thank you very much. In seasonally adjusted terms April milk production has dropped below the high growth rate trend of the past 8 months. This is a consequence of a fall in milk production per cow of almost 1%. Dr Hauser takes a close look at the latest numbers and comes up with a slightly less pessimistic view than he has been espousing for some time.

 Global milk production has rocketed up over the last year and now the question on everybody's lips is: ‘will global demand keep pace?’. The final numbers are in for 2011, so this week we’ve decided to throw our analysis into the ring and see how it fares.

The Dairy Industry Restructure Package is now a thing of the past and Australia has almost completely dismantled government regulation and support for the dairy industry. Was deregulation a good thing for Australia? To find answers for this question Dr Hauser takes a look at Canada where, despite raging debate, pressure to deregulate has been vehemently and successfully resisted by the dairy industry.

In the spirit of global co-operation, Xcheque brings you another of our calculator tools that bridge the dairy industry language barrier.  This calculator converts milk quantities from one international unit to another. When New Zealand farmers talk about how much their cows produce in milk solids you can convert that to pounds, hundredweight, gallons, kilograms, or litres. If you are really lucky you may even be able to get this to work on your smart phone!

Volatility and change is a recurring theme in Xcheque's analysis of the global dairy industry. This article provides a snapshot of the drivers and latest data in the changing landscape of Oceania and global milk prices. We have seen it all before and the future remains bright for Australia and New Zealand. The question is, can Europe and the US adapt to the new world order?

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy, US domestic subsidies - is it all just naked self interest? In his ongoing series of articles for Dairy Farmers Milk Cooperative, Dr Hauser investigates the relationship between Food Security and Sovereign Risks. Maybe subsidies aren't all bad and even then, what can you do about it? Make better quality milk!   

This month Xcheque launched a newsletter and news portal for Australia’s Dairy Farmers Milk Co-operative and Dr Hauser has jumped straight into the deep end with an article on $1 milk sales in supermarkets. It is a topic we have mostly avoided for the past year but now the sales trends are clear and rhetoric can be replaced with cold hard facts.