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Dairy Ag facts
Milk is the largest single agricultural commodity in California.
The average Californian drinks 27 gallons of milk per year.
Fluid milk uses up only one third of the California production. The rest goes to the manufacturing industry to product products such as cheese, butter, ice cream, etc.
The milk produced in a year by the average dairy cow is sufficient to provide the annual dairy products needs of approximately 26 people.
Whole milk is about 4% fat.
The average cow produces almost 19,000 pounds, or 2,200 gallons of milk per year.
Some cows have produced as much as 35,000 pounds of milk in a single year, which is enough to provide dairy product for fifty people over a period of a year.
Feed costs constitute 50-60% of the total cost of milk production.