LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Thousands of milk producers across the country, including approximately 450 producers in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming will receive surveys from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), as the agency collects information for the 2024 July Milk Production Survey.

“The dairy industry is an important component of the Mountain Region’s agricultural economy, and it is crucial for all involved to have access to accurate data,” said Rodger Ott, Director, Mountain Regional Field Office.

NASS conducts the Milk Production survey every January, April, July, and October. The survey asks producers to provide the number of milk cows in their herd, cows milked, and total milk production for the first day of the month. This survey also collects information on hay purchased to feed the dairy herd. By participating in the survey, milk producers can ensure that NASS provides timely, accurate, and useful data that all sectors of the U.S. milk industry can use to make sound business decisions.

“At NASS, we have a strong commitment to respondent confidentiality,” Ott said. “We are required by law to protect the privacy of all responses and publish data only in aggregate form, ensuring that no individual producer or operation can be identified.”

Survey results will be published in the quarterly Milk Production report released July 23, 2024.

Additionally, NASS will contact more than 130,000 producers across the nation to determine crop acreage and stock levels as of June 1, 2024 for the June Agricultural Survey and the June Area Survey. Producers can respond to the June Agricultural Survey online at agcounts.usda.gov, by phone, or mail. They will be asked to provide information on planted and harvested acreage, including acreage for biotech crops and grain stocks. Every response counts! For the June Area Survey, agency representatives will interview farm and ranch operators in randomly selected segments over the phone and in person. Producers will be asked to provide information on crop acreage, grain stocks, livestock inventory, land values, and value of sales. 

NASS will publish the data in a series of USDA reports, including the Acreage and quarterly Grain Stocks reports, on June 28, 2024. These data also contribute to NASS’s monthly and annual Crop Production reports, the annual Small Grains Summary, annual Farms and Land in Farms and Land Values reports, various livestock reports, including Cattle, Sheep and Goats, and Hogs and Pigs, and USDA’s monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates.

All NASS reports are available online at www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/. For state specific questions, please contact the USDA NASS State Statistician for Utah, John Hilton, at john.hilton@usda.gov.