Idaho third in nation for milk production

BOISE – Idaho was the third-highest milk-producing state last year, behind California and Wisconsin.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Idaho cows produced about 13.9 billion pounds of milk in 2014.

The Idaho Press-Tribune reported that’s an increase from 13.4 billion pounds in 2013 and helped Idaho take the No. 3 spot back from New York.

California is the top producer with more than 42 billion pounds of milk, and Wisconsin comes in second with more than 27 billion pounds.

Idaho had 575,000 head of milk cows in 2014 that each produced an average of 24,000 pounds of milk.