In December 2009 the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the USDA that provides the dairy industry, including producers, with access to funds for innovative projects related to sustainability.

Scott Druker Senior Business Manager Arm & Hammer Animal Nutrition

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency shut down Excel Dairy, a 1,500-cow operation located near Thief River Falls in Minnesota, due to several air quality violations through the years. This marks the first time the state has taken such an action against a dairy farm.

As medical progress marches on, the use of transplants and body parts has become commonplace. Worldwide, from India to Italy, from Iran to Indiana, the surgeries are routine. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. alone has 83,000 people on the waiting list for a kidney! Corneas, hearts, livers and lungs do a brisk trade on the organ market.

Since my last writing, the USDA Dairy Advisory Board has held its first meeting in Washington, D.C. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave the 17-memember committee an opening charge to evaluate the most difficult challenges in the industry and present some solutions by the end of the year. Other meetings are scheduled in June and September. Now is the time to review all of the industry’s proposals for change.

This was the second year I have been to the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge and the second year Proud to Dairy has provided shirts for the event. The caliber of students that attend and compete in this competition is a tribute to both the dairy industry and the coaches that help prepare the students for the competition, and that is why Proud to Dairy is ... well ... proud to be a part of the event.

As a boy, many of the summer hours were spent building things – huts, tree houses, tunnels, forts and carts. We scavenged lumber from the pallets and crates that brought paper to my father’s printing shop, shipping crates to the town’s hardware stores, fruit and vegetable crates at grocery stores. Cleaned of nails, we would have a stack of wood to build whatever we wanted.

If you make your way through any of your local stores, likely you have found yourself asking the question, “Why does this cost so much?” Perhaps you have seen the illustration that so vividly breaks down a box of corn flakes according to its components and their contribution to the price of that cereal.

Since the last time we explored forward dairy production margins in the February 9 edition, much has changed in the market both for milk prices and feed costs. On a positive note, feed costs have held steady and are under fundamental pressure from larger crop estimates out of South America, as well as indications that acreage will be higher in the U.S. this spring. Moreover, domestic demand over the past quarter has not been as strong as previously expected. Unfortunately, milk prices have dropped sharply since mid-January, more than offsetting all of the benefit gained from steady to cheaper feed prices.

Visalia, California was the setting for the 2010 North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge. Thirty schools attended this year’s competition and were welcomed with nice, warm California weather. Blue skies and low 70s made it easy to see why dairymen have traditionally loved dairying in California.