Two years of drought have severely depleted U.S. hay stocks. The recently released December 1 hay stocks from USDA showed total stocks of 71.9 million tons, 16.4 percent below the previous ten-year average and the lowest December 1 stocks on record in the data back to 1973 (Table 1).
Each of the top ten states for hay stocks was down compared to the ten-year average and collectively were down 20.8 percent from the 2012-2021 average December 1 stocks level (Table 1). The largest hay stocks on December 1 were in Texas, 25.8 percent below the ten-year average for the state. Other top ten…
