Fourty-eight students from 11 Southern colleges and universities participated in the second annual Southern Regional Dairy Challenge held at the Cook Hotel & Conference Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in November 2007. Two new schools competed in this year’s event.

In November 2007, 126 students from 14 Northeast colleges and two Canadian universities participated in the fifth annual Northeast Regional Dairy Challenge held at the Holiday Inn in Concord, New Hampshire.

The RW Spin Off Round Bale Feeder Model FSO-906 is designed to fit Category II, or Category III 3-pt hitches (including quick hitches) and requires a minimum of 8-10 GPM at 1,500 psi to operate.

More milk in South Dakota recently spurred award-winning Davisco Foods, an international company that supplies a major portion of Kraft Foods cheese products, to complete a $40 million expansion project at their Lake Norden, South Dakota, cheese plant in anticipation of continued growth in the state’s dairy industry.

Dairy farming is undergoing striking changes. In the 1970s, a large dairy farm had a herd of 100 milk cows. Typically, the family operating the farm provided most of the labor and grew most of the herd’s feed on the farm. While thousands of such farms remain in operation, their numbers, as well as their production methods, are in sharp decline.

Editor’s note: The following opinion editorial was submitted to Progressive Dairyman by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Ethanol continues to take hits from detractors both inside and outside of agriculture. An article in an early January issue of Progressive Dairyman put the bull’s eye on the back of ethanol production in relation to the price of feed grains and a few other points. We appreciate this forum for response.

Four dairy farmers in Alaska’s Matanuska Valley may start dumping milk this month. And may be forced to shut down their operations unless stop-gap measures are put in place immediately.

When the rain started falling on December 2, 2007, Lonny Shilter expected a typical Washington State thundershower. The forecast was for rain but not as much as fell in a February 1996 storm, which caused flooding in Shilter’s neighborhood.

The following five products were chosen by a committee of industry professionals and dairymen as the newest, most innovative dairy products and will be showcased during World Ag Expo Feb. 12-14 in Tulare, California.Progressive Dairyman asked each of the product inventors or sponsoring companies to discuss how their products came to the dairy market and how the products fill an industry need.

With more than 1,700 exhibitors and 100,000 attendees from 67 countries all on 2.6 million square feet of showgrounds, World Ag Expo is the largest ag expo of its kind worldwide. During this year’s show February 12-14, the grounds will expand again with the addition of the Dairy Technology Center (DTC) and surrounding outdoor dairy exhibit space.