DeLaval will strengthen its presence and service in New York and Vermont through the acquisition of Premier Dairy Service LLC. Premier Dairy Service LLC is headquartered in Argyle, New York, with other locations in Middlebury and St. Albans, Vermont. The business was originally established in 1969. Currently, 18 employees at three locations provide service for approximately 1,500 licensed dairies. DeLaval believes the acquisition strengthens its commitment to maintaining and expanding its customer base. By acquiring Premier Dairy Service LLC, DeLaval will meet the needs of more than 150,000 cows in a most important dairy area.

Producers from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois are invited to the 2011 Young Producer Winter Get-Away themed “YPCC Rodeo Finals,” which is sponsored by Accelerated Genetics on Jan. 29-30 at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

Scientists have found that lactoferrin—a whey protein found in milk— could be an anticancer agent for breast cancer. Lactoferrin is an iron-binding protein that has been reported to inhibit several other types of cancer. According to a study published in the January 2011 issue of the American Dairy Science Association’s Journal of Dairy Science, scientists in Portugal found that breast cancer cells treated with lactoferrin decreased the cancer cells’ viability by 47-54 percent and decreased the growth rates of the cancer cells by 40-64 percent. “There is overwhelming evidence that biologically active food components are key environmental factors affecting the incidence of many chronic diseases,” said Lígia Raquel Rodrigues, author of the study and member of the American Dairy Science Association. “However, because the full extent of such components in our diet isn’t known, nor is the understanding of their mechanisms of action, we undertook this study for a closer look.”

Economic multipliers make it possible to calculate the effect of the dairy industry on the economic activity of South Dakota. Alvaro Garcia, South Dakota Cooperative Extension Dairy Specialist, said that a 2004 report from the University of Wisconsin Dairy Marketing and Risk Management Program addressed the economic dairy multipliers of each state and the U.S. as a whole. Information for this report was obtained from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, USDA/NASS, and the National Milk Producers Federation. “Under the current economic conditions and with unemployment for the U.S. close to 10 percent, it is important to quantify how much each additional dollar generated by the dairy industry impacts job generation,” Garcia said. “Nationally, employment multipliers calculate the number of jobs created by increasing dairy sales by $1 million. We can use the formula to evaluate how South Dakota’s dairy industry feeds employment.”