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Earlier this month, the Idaho Bankers Association (IBA) held its 2012 Agricultural Bankers Education Conference.
IBA President/CEO Dawn Justice said that it's challenging to draw an overall conclusion from the conference about how agriculture will intersect with the overall economy in the near future.
"There are a lot of things happening [in the global economy] and 'uncertainty' is still the watch word," said Justice. "There are a lot of 'What if?' scenarios."
Justice emphasized that it's important for every farmer to keep up with what's happening in the global market. "That impacts everything. Farmers have to be more sophisticated -- there's a whole lot more to consider than what they had to in the past."
This spring, cattle genetics organization Genex Cooperative, Inc., retired equity from 1988, 1989 and 1990 to member patrons throughout the contiguous U.S.
“The cooperative’s board of directors, supported by producer delegates, authorized the retirement of this patronage originally issued for $4,798,178,” explains Larry Romuald, Genex treasurer.
“The benefits are being distributed to our member-owners on the basis of the amount of business they conducted with the cooperative during each of those years.”
California milk production usually takes a dip in the wet, cold months of December through February. That didn’t happen this year – and now dairy producers will have to make amends.
Penalties for more than assigned baseline have been levied as processors try to convince dairy producers to cut back. But a rollback in the tide of milk might be tough.
In late April, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry voted 16-5 to approve the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012, thus sending it to the full U.S. Senate for consideration.
The dairy title of this legislation repeals the Milk Income Loss Contracts (MILC), Dairy Product Price Support Program (DPPSP) and Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP).
These programs are replaced with the Dairy Production Margin Protection Program, which offers no-cost insurance coverage at $4 margin of the all-milk price over the national average feed cost.
Labor Department listens, removes proposed child labor rule
Since the U.S. Department of Labor released a proposed rule to update child labor regulations in agriculture-related jobs last September, the agriculture industry stepped forward to make its position heard.
In our own poll, Progressive Dairyman readers appeared to side with the vocal majority, with 46.8 percent stating a child as young as 8 or 9 should be allowed to work on a dairy farm.
The upcoming 4-State Dairy Nutrition and Management Conference will be held June 13-14, 2012, in Dubuque, Iowa. Click here to learn how you can attend the conference.
We asked two of the speakers a few questions about their topics and why producers should be interested in attending.
Thomas Overton Associate Professor and PRO-DAIRY Director Cornell University
A bill recently approved by a legislative committee would funnel revenues from the Oxford Casino to a loan program to aid Maine's dairy farmers.
The Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee supported a bill to create a revolving low-interest loan fund that farmers could use for equipment purchases and other capital needs, according to the Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MBPN).
A large fraction of Los Angeles' smog is ammonium nitrate particles, which are formed when ammonia reacts with nitrogen oxides that are produced in large quantities in automobile emissions.
The ammonia is generated by cars with certain types of catalytic converters – and by bacteria that consume cattle waste.
To provide an accounting of these ammonia sources in Los Angeles, researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration organized eighteen flights of a plane carrying instruments that could make detailed atmospheric measurements.
Earlier this week the U.S-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, or Colombia TPA, entered into force, opening new possibilities for U.S. trade with the third-largest economy in Central and South America.
The Colombia TPA is expected to boost U.S. dairy exports through immediate open and unlimited access for most whey and lactose products, as well as duty-free access for sizable amounts of cheese and skim milk powder, among other dairy products.
The estimated benefit to the U.S. dairy industry over the first several years of the implemented agreement is an additional $25 million in exports per year, according to an International Dairy Foods Association news release.
A comprehensive study that evaluates the nation’s efforts to enhance beef quality is nearing completion. Results will be distributed at the cattle industry’s summer conference in July.
The 2011 National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA), conducted every five years since 1991, assesses progress the industry makes on a variety of production issues that ultimately affect consumer demand for beef.
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