The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency shut down Excel Dairy, a 1,500-cow operation located near Thief River Falls in Minnesota, due to several air quality violations through the years. This marks the first time the state has taken such an action against a dairy farm.

This was the second year I have been to the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge and the second year Proud to Dairy has provided shirts for the event. The caliber of students that attend and compete in this competition is a tribute to both the dairy industry and the coaches that help prepare the students for the competition, and that is why Proud to Dairy is ... well ... proud to be a part of the event.

Visalia, California was the setting for the 2010 North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge. Thirty schools attended this year’s competition and were welcomed with nice, warm California weather. Blue skies and low 70s made it easy to see why dairymen have traditionally loved dairying in California.

Editor’s note: The following article summarizes an online survey being conducted on the use of tail docking. Do you dock the tails of cows on your farm? Do your neighbors? What do you think of this practice? Here is your chance to share your views with other readers by participating in an online tail docking survey. You can see online which answers (and the reasons behind these) are most popular. We will also report results back to readers in the next issue, summarizing the most popular reasons for agreeing and disagreeing with docking the tails of dairy cows.

The Waterman Dairy Center near The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio, will soon transition to a herd that is 100 percent Jersey. The discussion to have an all-Jersey herd began in June 2009 and was driven by feed costs.

On March 31st a meeting was attended by over 160 individuals representing 87 dairies with just under 260,000 cows to provide input into how dairy producers in Idaho want their organization to address the current ongoing dairy crises. The economics of the dairy industry is like any other industry; if supplies outpace demand, the price will go down; when supplies are short, price will go up. The question lies in how to control supply. Everyone realizes that if producers fail to make a correction in the supply/demand equation, the market place eventually will. In 1980 there were approximately 225,000 commercial dairy operations in the United States; 30 years later we are down to less than 57,000. The market place has made the necessary adjustments to keep supply and demand in balance, even with all of the current government programs.

Select Sires Inc.'s Board of Directors has selected Johnny Daniel of Charlotte, Tennessee, to the position of Board chairman, succeeding Randy Kortus, Lynden, Washington. The Board also elected first vice chairman, Myron Czech of Little Falls, Minnesota, and second vice chairman, Dan Andreas, of Sugarcreek, Ohio. Select Sires Board of Directors met on March 24 and 25 in Plain City, Ohio, in conjunction with Select Sires' Annual Meeting.

News surfaced this week of plans being put on hold for what would have been the United Kingdom's largest dairy. Nocton Dairies, which had intended to build an 8,100-cow operation, faced opposition from animal rights activists and environmental campaigners.