From time to time, many of us are called to give back in some way to the industry that has given us so much. Sometimes, it is in giving back that we gain even more. Recently, I was just one of more than 200 volunteers who devoted a day or two to educating roughly 1,000 youth about the career opportunities in agriculture.

World market prices pull back in first quarterAfter a year of historically high world commodity prices that led to record U.S. export volumes and record U.S. milk prices, global prices have pulled back in the last two months. By late April, Oceania milk powder and butter prices dropped about 15 percent from their mid-February peak, while European prices declined 5 to 10 percent.

AgCareers.com is the leading online job board and human resources service provider for the agricultural, food, biotechnology and natural resources industries. They conduct sever market research projects each year, including surveys of both employers and candidates in the ag industry. This data is from the AgCareers.com 2012-2013 Insight Survey and the 2013 Total Rewards Survey. For more agribusiness-specific market research, visit their website and select "Resources and News."

With more than 15 percent of the nation’s milk production (on a total solids basis) exported in 2013, the U.S. is a global dairy marketer. Milk production in New Zealand, the European Union (EU) or other countries has as much impact on farm milk prices as production in California or Wisconsin. Due to this impact, it is important for dairy farmers to know what is happening in milk production in other countries.

It is quite likely that as a child you were exposed to a game known as “Musical Chairs.” A room full of children would race around an ever-declining number of chairs assembled back-to-back while a song played in the background.

There has been a lot of talk about the Margin Protection Program (MPP) introduced in the new farm bill. As the saying goes, “Out with the old and in with the new.” The MPP replaces the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC), Dairy Product Price Support and the Dairy Export Incentive Program.

“Down cows are one of the unfortunate realities of dairy production,” according to Robert Leder, DVM, chairman of the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association’s Dairy Welfare Committee. “When a cow goes down, we need to set up some protocols: who is going to be responsible, when are we going to take care of it, what we are going to do and how we are going to do it,” he says.