Digest Highlights: Bills address dairy labor, school milk issues. Danone expanding plant-based beverage operations. Find a summary of these stories and updates on previous Progressive Dairyman news stories here.

Blood meal prices are at their lowest since the USDA started reporting prices for the feedstuff in 2014.

When critics of livestock agriculture take aim at the beef industry and its impact on the environment, cattlemen can’t afford to run, hide or sit idle. Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor and air quality specialist in cooperative extension at the University of California – Davis, knows firsthand how scientific data has been manipulated to demonize livestock agriculture. The strategy to fight those misperceptions? Learn the facts about your cattle production methods and then get to work defending them.

When the time came for brothers Chad and Brent Koopman, Epworth, Iowa, to take the reins of the second-generation dairy farm from their dad and uncle, they recognized changes were imminent.

While anti-dairy advocates and the dairy industry itself focus on declining fluid milk sales, there’s good dairy news: Latest USDA data shows 2016 U.S. per capita consumption of dairy products (on a milk-equivalent, milkfat basis) rose 16 pounds, the second-largest annual jump dating back to 1975.

In early October, I was sitting in a meeting at World Dairy Expo with an organization our publication works closely with as partners in this great industry.

Canadian dairy producers will meet with representatives from environmental, animal care and health NGOs, financial associations, retailers and food services at DFC’s Building a Sustainable Dairy Industry symposium, Nov. 7-8, to address sustainability in Canada’s dairy sector.