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The Wisconsin Holstein Association’s annual convention will be held Feb. 18-19, 2011 and hosted by the Dodge County Holstein Breeders at the Best Western Campus Inn in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.
Early this year the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy released its first-ever Sustainability Progress Report. Progressive Dairyman interviewed Erin Fitzgerald (pictured below left), the center’s vice president of sustainability, to review some of the highlights of the report. Below are her comments about excerpts from the report.
Click here to view the image at right full-size in a new window.
Q. How did this sustainability effort get started?
In 2008 we brought together 200 stakeholders including NGOs, academics, producers, retailers from across the dairy value chain and asked them how we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce value.
As a new Congress is assembled, dairy coalitions are busy outlining their reform plans for 2011. Here is what some of the key players are working on:
Foundation for the Future
NMPF is working to put the specifics of the Foundation for the Future program into legislative form so that members of Congress can have the legislation evaluated for its costs and economic impact.
Tax law changes have been numerous in 2010, so it seems appropriate that the year closed out with one more. On December 17, 2010,
President Obama signed into law the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 that includes the highly anticipated extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.
There was much debate on whether the favorable individual income tax rates should be extended for everyone, or for everyone except the “rich.” Ultimately the rates in effect in recent years (10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent, and 35 percent) will stay in effect for two years for all individual taxpayers.
This past year has certainly been one many dairy producers would just as easily like to forget. After a brutal year in 2009, profit margins remained negative through most of last year with depressed milk prices and high feed costs crippling operations.
Increased debt loads and lost equity have been the themes as many dairymen are simply trying to weather the storm and survive this current cycle.
After the past couple of years, one has to wonder if things can get much worse than they have been, as well as when or if the cycle may finally be turning for the better.
During the month of January, Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) accepted 19 requests for export assistance from Darigold, Foremost Farms, Dairy Farmers of America, and Land O’Lakes for a sales total of 2,019 metric tons (4.451 million pounds) of Cheddar, Gouda, and Monterey Jack cheese to customers in North Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and Asia. The product will be delivered January 2011 through May 2011.
A Minnesota company will take over two dairies in Veblen, South Dakota.
Riverview LLP will assume management immediately after a bankruptcy judge approved a purchase agreement late last week, according to the company and court documents.
The two dairies, known as Veblen East and Veblen West, will be renamed Marshall Dairy.
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