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Every summer, photos and videos of cute calves, Jerseys with their tongues out and tall glasses of milk cover social media feeds as we celebrate June Dairy Month. Farm tours, ice cream parties and other events promoting dairy will also be hosted (many virtually, this year). As farms, companies, organizations and stores share their love of dairy, we hope to have positive conversations with the public about dairy farming, animal welfare, nutrition and sustainability, but we must also prepare for the negative attention we will undoubtedly receive from animal welfare activists.
The USDA released December and 2020 annual “mailbox” milk price summaries, providing yet another illustration of how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted milk marketing last year. When compared to the USDA’s all-milk prices, the price differences also reflect challenges to dairy risk management.
With the COVID-19 pandemic weighing heavily on the world economy and agriculture markets, David Kohl, professor emeritus of agricultural economics at Virginia Tech, recently shared how pandemic economics are impacting the U.S. dairy industry.
In this column, Progressive Dairy summarizes issues in the news and attempts to describe how they might affect dairy farmers. Look for more extensive background and details at Progressive Dairy.
It’s no surprise the infusion of direct government payments to farmers helped many dairy operators weather the storm that was 2020. Those payments were necessary to help operators struggling with the many effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s not something you can build a plan around.
They say hindsight is 20/20, but the year 2020 contained anything but hindsight. Blindsided by what we now know as COVID-19, governments were forced to intervene in the form of financial and medical assistance.
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