Combining a passion for travel and the dairy industry, Ken Natzke arranges trips for dairymen to see what farming is like in other parts of the country and world.

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.

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.