Milk Production Continues To Lag In Wis., Minn.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Milk production has slowed down in Wisconsin and Minnesota, in part because dairy cows there haven't been as productive.

Wisconsin dairy farmers harvested 2.28 billion pounds of milk in May. That's a 2 percent decrease from May of last year.

And in Minnesota, production for May was down 3 percent from the same month last year, to 789 million pounds.

In both states, the number of dairy cows had gone up. But in both cases, the average volume that each cow produced was down.

Despite Wisconsin's decrease, it remains the nation's second-leading milk producer. The leader by far is still California, which produced 3.7 billion pounds, a 4 percent increase.

Across the U.S., milk production was up 2 percent in May. The nation's dairy farmers harvested 16.0 billion pounds.

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