America’s Dairy Industry Facing Difficulties from Long-Running Structural Changes

Where then will the future take the dairy sector structure? The crux of structural change is that a sector’s prospects are not strongly tied to those of its participants. Hard science is likely remain in the driver’s seat, with economic considerations defining the terrain and policy interventions seeking to level the bumps. Change will continue and it may continue to be wrenching, favoring consumers on the whole and some producers. This Choices theme deals with all of the above, although with emphasis on producers. But other forces, new and old, are coalescing. Butter substitutes consumed much political oxygen in the United States for decades, and milk substitutes are doing so now. The presence of substitutes will largely impact markets and production structure through overall pricing pressure. A second set of forces—having to do with such process attributes as animal welfare, organic traits, and One Health connections—may emerge to have more direct and more varied impacts on dairy markets and production structure