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By the time this issue hits mailboxes, my husband and I will have, the Lord willing, settled in at home with our third baby girl. Especially compared to the journey we went through with our second daughter, this pregnancy was mostly uneventful – until I was hospitalized with COVID-19 for a week in September.
The dairy industry has always been resilient. However, the COVID-19 pandemic tested the industry’s ability to navigate constant changes, highlighted by an initial dramatic decline in dairy demand followed by panic buying, significant pulls on the retail side, supply disruptions, empty shelves, dumped milk, government assistance and labor shortages.
The phrase, “The gorilla in the room” is often used to describe something that is obvious yet ignored. The “gorillas” in milk marketing have grown more obvious due to disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) system designed for a different time.
The COVID-19 pandemic taught and continues to teach numerous lessons to those of us in the dairy industry. We found out in March 2020 that the processing and packaging part of the industry could adapt but was not very nimble in doing so.
Although the last 18 months have been interesting, there are still ways we can advocate for agriculture and share our stories with consumers. Here are a few tips I've learned through the American Farm Bureau’s Partners in Agriculture Leadership (PAL) class, other media training or tried myself. The PAL program will be starting a new two-year class in the spring of 2022 if you're looking to improve your advocacy skills! (Learn more here.)
Summer is officially in the rearview mirror, and teachers and kids are back in school. For some, the feeling of being back in the classroom is nearly electric – especially after the turbulent year that was 2020 thanks to COVID-19.
The potential for higher interest rates is the darkest cloud shading recent news that farm debt in Canada recorded the smallest increase in six years, according to Farm Credit Canada’s (FCC) chief economist.
This spring, a real estate listing caught my eye. An old friend from high school shared a listing in our hometown on Facebook. It was a historical home on acreage. I clicked on the listing and browsed through the photos.
The events of 2020 hit the custom processing sector like a sledgehammer. In addition to the struggles faced by all small businesses, custom meat processors found themselves in a unique bind as larger plants were forced to slow or even shut down, and producers flocked to smaller businesses to get their animals harvested.
