With all of the reports covering the bird flu outbreak and its spread in dairy herds, it would be logical to assume a significant impact on production. But that is not the story the numbers are telling. Milk production for April was only down 0.4% from last year and the USDA revised production up for March.

The April Dairy Product report showed that cheese production increased by 1.8%, butter was up 5.3%, hard ice cream climbed 7.3%, sour cream was up 4.7% and there was a 10.9% increase in yogurt.

Let’s look at the numbers to see what is happening. There are about 26,000 licensed dairy farms in the country. Only 26 farms had confirmed infections in April. An infected farm could lose 20% of its production for the month. This translates to a relatively small impact on production.

The USDA now has confirmed bird flu on 92 farms across 12 states. There are also undoubtedly more unconfirmed cases. Looking at these numbers, a widespread impact somewhere north of 500 or more farms infected in a single month would be necessary to impact production significantly.

Read more about the bird flu’s impact on milk production here.