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You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees and getting ready for spring. With that in mind, Progressive Dairyman looks at issues in the news impacting you and your dairy business.
As climate change is at the height of political and socioeconomical conversations, animal agriculture has received blowback. Animal rights and other special interest groups are now using global warming as their platform for slandering agriculture and its allies.
Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a national dairy marketing cooperative owned by more than 14,000 members on nearly 8,000 farms in 48 states, held its 21st annual meeting, March 18-20, in Kansas City, Missouri. The theme for this year’s meeting was “One Cooperative. One Planet. One Community.” — highlighting how DFA is working together with others with a link to dairy to protect the environment and nourish families around the world.
The USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service (NASS) is catching up on reports delayed due to the partial government shutdown earlier this year, releasing January and February 2019 milk production reports within a week of each other on March 12 and 19, respectively. There’s the potential for improved prices based on those numbers, according to Bob Cropp, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Although federal dairy safety net programs have been strengthened, efforts to change dairy policy affecting milk pricing and production have not ended. After a hard winter saw a high number of dairy farm exits, policy meetings and proposals are emerging this spring.
Legislation prohibiting mislabeling of nondairy foods has been reintroduced in both houses of Congress. The legislation enhances efforts to encourage the FDA to enforce labeling regulations for plant-based imitators of milk, cheese, butter and other products.
January 2019 U.S. milk production continued a four-month streak in which year-over-year growth was less than 1 percent. However, while cow numbers were down from a year ago, the U.S. dairy herd increased about 2,000 head from December, ending a string of seven straight months of contraction.
RSS