The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the January Federal order Class III benchmark milk price at $19.43 per hundredweight, which is down $1.07 from December 2022, 95 cents below January 2022 and the lowest Class III price since December 2021.

Things look a little better globally. The second Global Dairy Trade event of 2023 saw its weighted average slip just 0.1% following a 2.8% drop Jan. 3 and 3.8% Dec. 20, 2022.