One key to the future success of milk sales for America’s dairy farmers is the future of America’s youth – the millions of students who attend schools 180-some days a year. The dairy promotion checkoff is very active in increasing access to great dairy products in schools, helping those kids become lifelong dairy consumers.

Combined with the 24.9 million pounds of cheese and butter sold with CWT export assistance in the first quarter of 2017, CWT members will be sending the milkfat equivalent of more than 450 million pounds of milk into key overseas markets.

See a need: 2016 consumer trust research by the Center for Food Integrity states that a majority of consumers know little about dairy farming, yet they have a very strong desire to learn more about how their food is produced and where it comes from.

Imagine a day when dairy farmers and other members of the U.S. dairy industry realize the economic, environmental and societal benefits of a currently underused resource: manure. Now, with the help of Newtrient, that day is closer to reality.

On June 7, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a national farmer-owned dairy cooperative, celebrated the opening of its new headquarters building in Kansas City, Kansas. The three-story, 110,000-square-foot building, which was designed by HOK, is located at 1405 N. 98th St. and honors the cooperative’s dairy farmer members.

There was a time in our industry when whey was more waste product than valuable byproduct. The whey that remained from cheese making was either discarded or spread on farmers’ fields years ago.

Should everyone know a dairy farmer? Yes, I believe they should. But you might be thinking, “Why would anyone want to know a dairy farmer?”

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), a national farmer-owned dairy cooperative, and Vanguard Renewables, a Massachusetts-based renewable energy developer, formed a strategic partnership to help bring anaerobic digestion technology to more farms across the country.

Dairy farmer leaders of the national dairy checkoff learned a lot from watching the United Kingdom struggle to manage crisis communications in the aftermath of BSE and foot and mouth disease outbreaks in 2001.

Years ago, the farmer-funded dairy promotion checkoff moved from a generic advertising approach to a strategy of working with powerful partners with like values who would invest with us and help advance dairy farmers’ interests in doing good things for the world and doing good business for themselves.