In dairy-related news this third week of February 2025: Arizona finds new HPAI genotype through milk testing, AFBF reported farmers lost $20.3 billion to weather disasters in 2024, and DFA and Promised Land Dairy launch new milk products.

The words “financially stressed,” “weary” and “frustrated” paint a less than cheery picture of the current state of the dairy economy heading into 2024 for producers in Arizona, California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The U.S. Department of the Interior on March 30 published a proposal that could shift priorities on 245 million acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The rule would likely mark a sizable shift in BLM practices; according to an agency statement, it intends to put “conservation on equal footing with other uses,” which it says is “consistent with the BLM’s multiple use and sustained yield mission.”

Given its size, scope and geography, there are a range of issues facing the California dairy community. With attention spread across near-term financial challenges to longer-term environmental regulations, the state’s dairy producers are apprehensive at the start of 2023.