Entering 2025, the Texas dairy industry is healing from last year’s drought conditions and bird flu or highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreak. However, Darren Turley, executive director at the Texas Association of Dairymen, says dairy producers are expecting better conditions and pricing moving forward.
“We are optimistic,” Turley says. “While Texas dairy farmers certainly have their concerns, our milk production continues to grow, and there is much to be optimistic about going into the new year.”
Processing
As milk production in Texas has grown in recent years, so has the need for more nearby processing facilities. There are multiple new dairy processing facilities in the works, including the Leprino plant in Lubbock and the Walmart plant in central Texas.
“Leprino recently held the grand opening of its 850,000-square-foot plant in Lubbock, Texas. The plant has accepted its first loads of milk to test plant operations and start producing mozzarella cheese and whey,” Turley says.
Once fully operational in 2026, the Leprino plant will create a new outlet for approximately 200 truckloads of milk daily.
“At that point, the company estimates it will process 8 million pounds of milk and 1.5 million pounds of cheese each day,” Turley says.
Additionally, Walmart began construction of a new fluid milk plant in central Texas and is expected to start taking milk in early 2026.
Policy
Among policy priorities in Texas is the ongoing need for water.
“Our state continues to grow rapidly, and water is a major concern not only to agriculture producers but to all areas of Texas, especially in the dry conditions we’ve been seeing for a long time,” Turley says.
Other key issues on Turley’s radar include immigration reform, retail expansion of unpasteurized milk and milk pricing.
“The ongoing discussion of immigration reform is a very unsettling topic for dairy and other agriculture producers,” he says. “There are serious concerns about the impact on legal immigration, including those who are here on work visas who come to work in agriculture industries. It still takes a lot of labor to take care of our state’s dairy herd. This could put the nation’s food supply at risk. With Texas’ size and its reliance on agriculture’s contributions to the economy, the impact could be even greater in Texas than in most states.”
Bird flu
Texas was the first state to be affected by the bird flu outbreak in March 2024, and they are hoping to not see it reemerge in herds this year.
“We were fortunate that H5N1 only infected a limited number of dairy farms in Texas and has not had a long-term impact on operations in the state,” Turley says. “Texas has returned to normal milk production.”
Barb Petersen, DVM, who is the president at Sunrise Veterinary Service PLLC in Texas, was one of the veterinarians who helped put the pieces together at the beginning of the outbreak in conjunction with a group of practicing veterinarians all performing diagnostic work, and support from Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) and Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory (ISU VDL).
“I submitted samples from deceased birds, cats and milk samples from affected cows, which helped to put some puzzle pieces together. It was a stressful time as everyone, including myself, was fearful of the outcome of the findings, and we all (dairy owners, managers, employees, veterinarians) went through stages of grief. We are now in the bargaining and acceptance stages but moved through denial, anger and depression in the process of dealing with this situation. It has been very important to accept what happened and focus on what we can learn together,” Petersen says.
