USDA · NASS

US dairy production

How much the United States made, month by month: the milk itself, and the butter, cheese, nonfat dry milk and dry whey it became. USDA's Milk Production report and Dairy Products survey, converted to tonnes — the making half of the American supply picture, next to the stocks page that holds the keeping half.

Units

Milk

The source of everything else on this page. US milk peaks in the spring flush and troughs in late summer, so read the year against its predecessors, not against last month — a flush running under last year's is the earliest supply signal America prints.

Latest8,938,048 mt · 2026-06 · +2.3%

Every year over the same twelve months, in tonnes. The recent years show by default; the legend adds or removes the rest, and the axis rescales to what is on screen.

Dec: 20238,528,907 mt; 20248,504,413 mt; 20258,858,216 mt

Click a year in the legend to add or remove it.

Butter

Butter output follows cream availability, so it peaks with the flush and thins into autumn just as demand builds toward the bake — which is exactly why the cold stores exist. Read it with the butter stocks page: strong output into weak stocks is a different market from the reverse.

Latest94,428 mt · 2026-06 · +8.5%

Every year over the same twelve months, in tonnes. The recent years show by default; the legend adds or removes the rest, and the axis rescales to what is on screen.

Dec: 202387,695 mt; 202490,607 mt; 202594,134 mt

Click a year in the legend to add or remove it.

Cheese

Total cheese excluding cottage — the biggest single destination of American milk. The seasonal swing is flatter than butter's because cheese vats run steadily; the signal is the year-on-year gap, and a sustained shortfall here tightens the whey and permeate streams with it.

Latest558,480 mt · 2026-06 · +1.1%

Every year over the same twelve months, in tonnes. The recent years show by default; the legend adds or removes the rest, and the axis rescales to what is on screen.

Dec: 2023545,458 mt; 2024544,042 mt; 2025584,311 mt

Click a year in the legend to add or remove it.

Nonfat dry milk

America's skimmed milk powder is the balancing product: the dryers take what the cheese vats and bottling lines leave, so output swings harder than milk itself. Heavy production here lands on the same export customers Europe quotes — read it next to the NDM stocks and the CME price.

Latest74,792 mt · 2026-06 · +14.2%

Every year over the same twelve months, in tonnes. The recent years show by default; the legend adds or removes the rest, and the axis rescales to what is on screen.

Dec: 202366,628 mt; 202458,384 mt; 202557,941 mt

Click a year in the legend to add or remove it.

Dry whey

Dry whey is made from what the cheese vats give, so its output tracks the cheese line with a lag. A production run-up alongside building stocks is what softens the export offer weeks before the price admits it.

Latest36,695 mt · 2026-06 · +7.3%

Every year over the same twelve months, in tonnes. The recent years show by default; the legend adds or removes the rest, and the axis rescales to what is on screen.

Dec: 202332,908 mt; 202431,305 mt; 202532,965 mt

Click a year in the legend to add or remove it.

How to read production

Production is the rate the supply picture moves at: stocks say what sits in the warehouse, production says how fast it is being fed. These are USDA's monthly national estimates — milk from the Milk Production report, products from the Dairy Products survey — in tonnes, with six years of history behind each figure.