Consumers of dairy products are the people who make the dairy industry an industry. Without the consumer buying that chunk of cheese or gallon of milk, eating a pizza, having a dish of ice cream or purchasing bakery products which use nonfat dry milk powder or whey as an ingredient, there would not be a commercial dairy industry.

Average annual milk production per cow in the U.S. increased from 18,197 pounds in 2000 to almost 23,000 pounds in 2017. That’s a 26 percent increase. These production numbers are reported and published on a regular basis. Most in the dairy industry are familiar with the significant gain in milk produced per cow.

The Republic of Senegal, a former French colony that gained its independence in 1960, is the most western country on the African continent. This semi-tropical country has a population of about 16.25 million people and has seen its population increase over 60 percent since the beginning of the 21st century.

Like many of you, I attend many dairy meetings and am fortunate to have the opportunity to speak at many of them. In my interactions with dairy farmers and other industry people at these meetings, I find there is not a good understanding of what is happening with demand for dairy products.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with one of my dairy farmer friends. This dairyman is a well-respected and known leader in the dairy industry. He told me about participating in a recent meeting of agriculture leaders.

One responsibility of my first full-time job was to survey fluid milk cases in supermarkets. I gathered information with regard to products on the shelves, their placement and price.

One purpose of a milk pricing system is to give dairy farmers the economic signal to produce the milk components of greatest value. For many years, our U.S. milk pricing system placed the greatest economic value on the skim portion of milk and the components in the skim, especially protein.

Two recent articles about supermarkets caught my attention. The first was from the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS). ERS reports retail food prices in 2016 were 1.3 percent lower than the previous year.

Last year, the nation’s dairy farmers produced in excess of 30 billion pounds more milk than they produced 10 years ago. In a recent publication (Agricultural Projections to 2026), the USDA suggests milk production will increase at an even faster rate during the next 10 years.

In 2010, I retired as the CEO of Southeast Milk Inc. (SMI), a Florida-based regional dairy cooperative. From July to November of last year, seven years after retiring, I returned to SMI as the cooperative’s interim CEO. During those seven years some things changed and some things remained the same. Let me share with you the major ones.