Weather and the economy likely impacted somatic cell counts last year. Dean Foods will close a milk plant in Louisiana, and Walmart will build one in Indiana. This and other U.S. dairy industry news can be found here.

I was sitting in a room full of dairy farmers recently, fidgeting in my dress slacks as the meeting was about to begin. There was lots of chatter about who was from what area, how many cows each of us milked and of course the weather.

Inspire. That was the theme of the 2016 PDPW (Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin) Business Conference held recently in Madison, Wisconsin. Throughout the two-day event, I was inspired with ideas that I can use on my farm, in my classroom and in life. My inspiration actually started the day before the conference.

This month’s VAS DC305 tip is a tool that can help you track events and when they are happening by month, month of freshening and days in milk (DIM). You can also use it to analyze calf sex, calf mortality and twinning.

The Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a part of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996 (ADAA), has been amended by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to better regulate how antibiotics deemed medically important for human use are utilized in livestock.

Most readers change needles for cattle vaccinations after one to 10 injections.

Growing milk production on AMPI member farms, along with increased orders from food service customers, combined to push sales for Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMPI) to $1.7 billion in 2015. The annual business meeting of the cooperative, owned by 2,200 Upper Midwest dairy farmers, concluded on March 23 at the DoubleTree Hotel in Bloomington, Minnesota.

Four U.S. senators are asking the U.S. Department of the Treasury to review ChemChina’s proposed purchase of Syngenta as it relates to U.S. national security and the American food system.

President Barack Obama’s historic trip to Cuba was accompanied by an announcement U.S. agricultural commodity checkoff programs will be allowed to finance some marketing, promotion and research activities there. What impact it has on the U.S. dairy industry will take time, investment and congressional action.

The latest Cattle on Feed report pegs March 1 feedlot inventories at 10.77 million head, 101 percent of year-ago levels. February marketings and placements were both up year over year partly because of an extra business day in February due to leap year.