USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will resume milk production quarterly producer surveys in the new federal fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2013.

NASS suspended the surveys in April of this year to meet the budget reductions required by sequestration. The agency uses information gathered in the quarterly surveys along with various sources of administrative data to establish the monthly milk production estimates. With the quarterly surveys, the dairy cow and milk per cow statistics will once again be available. These are critical data points for interested parties to forecast future milk supply. The program will resume with a late September mailing of the survey form to producers and the release of resulting data on October 21.

Source: Agricultural Statistics Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture