By  E. W. Lang

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is closed tomorrow (Friday), so this OCaM is out a day early. The 4th lands on a Saturday this year, so instead of just calling it a regular Christian Holiday, it's designated as a three day weekend.

Weekends, vacations, days off, holidays, leisure and related vice are part of what precipitated the fall of Rome. Yes, it took 100 years, but it also took 180 designated holidays each year where the citizenry did nothing productive, except for the amphitheater staff and food vendors, obviously.

Here's a review of three weeks of spot milk prices. This is the milk price for tankers of raw milk that don't have a home. Someone wants to buy each of them for the least possible price usually in order to make cheese or butter, sour cream or any other Class II, III or IV product. Usually cheese, though, so these spot prices for loads of milk are priced relative to Class III (Cheese) Milk.

June 19 Class III for June was $21.18 and Spot Milk was 50 cents over, to $2.50 over Class III.

June 29 Class III for June was $20.93 and Spot Milk was $1 under, to $2 over Class III.

Today Class III for July is $22.97 but Spot Milk is $5 under, to even with Class III.

Granted this is a three day weekend, so the spot milk price may be affected by plants being closed an extra day, or three, this week. Regardless, $5 under Class III is a lot when cheese is near an all time high price, and indicates that enough milk was available for processing this past week.  Again, just two weeks ago, Spot Milk Traded up to $2.50 over Class - not under - so this indicates a change in the supply/demand trend that may or may not continue as hot weather sets in. 

Class III Milk Futures prices for the last half of this year gained $1.20 per cwt. this shortened week, and now average $19.00.

The People's Republic of Red China imported a lot of butter so far this year, according to information released by an Italian dairy economics firm. Butter imports were up over 40% from a year earlier, whey powder imports were up 22% and cheese imports were up 3.5%. The butter buys weren't much of a surprise, as that has been a very good value for months. Sometimes bargain prices govern international trade more effectively than do international trade agreements.  This same report - clal.it - also includes other information on the PRC, like Chinese sheep milk production and Chinese buffalo milk production so it's interesting reading, but only for a couple minutes. 

The US, Mexico, Canada trade agreement took effect this week. Enforcement of this kind of thing is always difficult. Senate Minority Leader Schumer (Dem. NY) is already accusing Canada of unfair dairy trade practices.

There was also a USDA Crop Report out a couple days ago that contained some surprises. New crop corn was up 24 cents per bushel and new crop beans were up 36 cents. Normally, we don't see surprises in the June report.

Normally, we don't see a lot of what has happened these past few months.