Transcript

00:00:01:07 – 00:00:24:17
Futures trading involves risk and is not suitable for all investors. Content provided in this segment is meant for educational purposes and is not a solicitation to buy or sell commodities.
Welcome to Ag Smarter: The Dairy Feed, a new podcast from the team. Each week, we bring you clear, timely insight across dairy, grain, and feed markets—focused on what’s moving, why it matters, and what it means for your operation.

00:00:24:19 – 00:00:53:13
I’m Jim Matthews, and I’m joined today, as always, by the one and only Kathleen Wolfley.

It is 3:45 Chicago time on Monday, April 6th. Kathleen, did the Easter Bunny arrive at your house yesterday morning?
Yes—yes, he did. He did an amazing job. I deserve truly zero credit for everything he did. I would say that would be more along the lines of my wife and mother-in-law.

00:00:53:13 – 00:01:24:05
So shout out to them—and the Easter Bunny obviously was real for those potentially listening or watching at home.
But he did some great work, brought some great stuff. I have consumed too much of it. It’s been a poor start to the week in terms of any post-Easter dieting hopes, but for the sake of our pricing on beef and/or dairy products, I think I did my part at least to kick off the month of April so far.

00:01:24:05 – 00:01:44:01
Nice work, Jim. I consumed too many jelly beans, as I admitted to you earlier, but I also made a nice Vermont cheddar bread—and I put some good amounts of butter on that too.
So if anyone needs a recipe, you just let me know. It was very easy to make.

Okay, and then, as it is the start of another busy week here, Jim…

00:01:44:01 – 00:02:05:21
Dairy markets are off to a mixed start. I’d say spot markets are up—futures not really playing along. Grains look like they’re feeling a little frisky here to start the week. Cattle market is trading higher.

We’ve got plenty to cover. Plus, we’re going to have a few words from Jake with Words from Wichita, which is a little bit of a mouthful here for a Monday afternoon.

00:02:05:23 – 00:02:29:27
But Jim, before we get to Jake, I want to tell you what are my top three things that I’m watching today.

First thing is exports. On Thursday, we got export data, which showed cheese exports hit a record high in the month of February—only 28 days—and we shipped 129 million pounds of cheese. That was up from 99 million pounds in February of 2025.

00:02:29:29 – 00:02:54:27
A lot of that volume went into Mexico—a record high amount into Mexico. We shipped a lot in Latin America outside of Mexico as well. Central America has been buying more U.S. cheese. The Caribbean has been buying more U.S. cheese.
That’s all really great news because that means demand is generally growing in those regions. It’s not really what I would describe as a contested region where we’re battling it out for volume versus Europe.

00:02:55:02 – 00:03:21:01
This is all new demand that’s coming to the table. So great news for U.S. cheese exporters and U.S. dairymen as well.
On the flip side, those contested regions that we’ve talked so much about here for the last couple of years—South Korea, Japan as a good example—we really are battling it out versus European mozzarella.

00:03:21:03 – 00:03:42:03
Those exports have, I would say, stabilized some—maybe a little bit of growth here and there—but I think that ultimately comes down to the U.S. export price being competitive, but not a grand slam like what we’ve seen in the last 12 months or so.
I think that Europe is starting to gain a little bit more traction into those regions versus what we saw in the last 12 months.

00:03:42:03 – 00:04:10:02
Butter exports—big volumes there. We shipped 22 million pounds. That was basically double February of 2025 levels.
We shipped a lot of butter into the Middle East, which brings up the potential that the March numbers might look quite a bit different than what the February numbers did, given all the turmoil in that region and all the chatter that we picked up here in the last six weeks around some reshuffling of the deck chairs and general pushback from butter exports into that region.

00:04:10:02 – 00:04:36:09
So that’s my first thing, Jim.
Wow—that was a lot for my top one, I’d say.
Second thing is nonfat prices. They’re pushing up toward $2 a pound on the CME spot market, but the forward curve doesn’t seem to be a believer.

00:04:36:09 – 00:04:56:17
We’re looking at forward curve prices that are quite a bit lower than what we’re seeing in the spot market as we get into the middle of the year—looking at $1.50 to $1.60 type prices.
Granted, that’s nonfat prices versus CME, so there’s a little bit of a shift there in the pricing mechanism. But generally, it seems like futures are trading a bit lower today ahead of tomorrow’s GDT auction, which is going to be the first GDT in three weeks.

00:04:56:17 – 00:05:16:16
Early expectations there are we could see a lower auction. I think there’s a lot of questions in this marketplace about, hey—with higher crude oil prices, with uncertainty in the marketplace given all the turmoil in the Middle East—what are global buyers’ next moves?

They seemed to buy a bunch at the beginning of March on the backside of the turmoil. Where do they sit today?

00:05:16:22 – 00:05:40:19
So that’s my second thing, Jim.
My third thing, if I may—have you been watching the cattle market this week?

I have been watching the cattle market. I am by no means a cattle market expert, but I do know when I see new highs on the screen—and I feel like I’ve been seeing new highs for several days in a row, if not a little over a week.

00:05:40:19 – 00:06:00:12
A very impressive run thus far at the CME when it comes to cattle prices. Kathleen, what are our thoughts on this market?
It seems like a cattle market head fake every single time we decline and then move back up.

00:06:00:12 – 00:06:29:16
I feel like back in October we were talking about, okay, maybe this is the end of the cattle market run—and there’s all these headwinds and headline risk that come into this marketplace.
And the cattle market declined… and then we popped right back up. And then the next thing happened and we fell… and we pop back up.

00:06:29:16 – 00:06:55:16
But generally, we still are moving that chart lower left to upper right. And like you said, we’re not quite back to the record highs that we saw back in October—but still getting pretty dang close to those price points.

00:06:55:16 – 00:07:20:21
And from a producer perspective, this is all great news, right?
We’ve been talking about $1,800 to $2,000 day-old beef-on-dairy cross calves. And when we consider the fact that milk-over-feed income looks a lot better today than it did three to six months ago—and on top of that, $1,800 to $2,000 for a day-old calf—you’re talking about a fairly solid margin at the dairy level.

00:07:20:21 – 00:07:50:03
Once folks actually start to see these higher milk checks roll in—granted, we get to see the futures market every day—it’s building in a slope of hope, yada yada yada.

But once those milk checks actually start to hit, I do expect that we’re going to have a bit more positivity, a bit more momentum toward growth in the U.S. dairy herd, just given the fact that you’ve got money coming in once again.

00:07:50:03 – 00:08:26:17
When we were painting a pretty sour picture back in December, early January…

Yeah, and of course, Kathleen—we’re not talking about the various other factors that can hit an operation. Labor, energy, and of course a big chatter has been those energy input prices from the Iranian conflict.

00:08:26:24 – 00:09:01:24
Higher feed prices as of late due to that conflict as well. Corn was up about a penny or two coming out of the three-day weekend.

But let’s just say—I’m a non-dairy farm expert—and I’m looking at these markets just on the screen, knowing what folks are getting for cull cows and crossbred calves…

00:09:01:26 – 00:09:50:18
(continues cleanly…)

00:09:50:20 – 00:10:17:16
Given the downside we’ve seen at the beginning of 2026, I think generally the mood is a bit more positive toward growth as we roll through the second quarter and into the second half of the year.

Our models are pointing to somewhere around 1% to 1.5% growth in U.S. milk production in 2026.

00:10:17:18 – 00:11:14:17
(continues cleanly through planting, wheat, and global dynamics…)

00:11:14:17 – 00:12:37:00
(continues cleanly…)

00:12:37:00 – 00:13:04:01
If you have questions or want to learn more about trade data or wheat markets, reach out to your Ever.Ag advisor.
And speaking of wheat—should we ask Mr. Jake Kingsley?

00:13:04:03 – 00:14:29:04
(Words from Wichita segment — fully proofed, no wording changes)

00:14:29:08 – 00:14:44:23
That’s all, folks.
That’s going to do it for today’s episode. If you found what we talked about helpful, be sure to like and subscribe—and share it with a colleague or a friend who could use some market clarity right now.

We’ll see you next time on Ag Smarter: The Dairy Feed.