On Dec. 1, 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor closed a public comment period on its proposed updates to child labor regulations aimed at safety concerns in agriculture-related jobs. Since then, the Keep Families Farming website has been established to support the legislative effort on Capitol Hill, where this issue will almost certainly be voted on this summer. In the pages that follow are comments received and posted on their website.

The last of four Senate Ag Committee hearings on the 2012 Farm Bill held on March 15 evaluated the need for and cost effectiveness of risk management tools available to farmers and how the federal government can provide appropriate risk management tools while making the best use of limited resources. Here are excerpts of testimony presented during the hearing.

On March 9, House Ag Committee Chairman Frank Lucas held a field hearing in Saranac Lake, New York. It was the first of a series to be held throughout March and April to gather input in advance of writing the 2012 Farm Bill. Members heard testimony from producers in the northeastern United States on the future of farm policy. New York is home to a range of agricultural industries, and it is among the nation’s top producers of a variety of specialty crops and dairy products. The hearing focused on policies impacting those industries in particular.

Rising crop and livestock prices have generated significant profits for many farmers – which some are using to buy additional land. The increased demand has driven land values to record highs in some areas. Given these market conditions, the American Bankers Association’s Agricultural and Rural Bankers Committee, comprised of leading agricultural bankers in the country, has developed these recommendations for buying farmland and reminds farmers to consult with their banker throughout the process to ensure decisions you make today best position you to prosper and obtain the credit you may need in the future.

Environmental factors such as temperature and light influence dairy cow productivity and health. Heat stress during lactation accounts for 10 to 25 percent of milk production loss on average. If you were milking cows this past summer, you can probably agree with that. In the upper Midwest, we faced a 4-pound to as much as a 30-pound drop in milk production. It’s easy to quantify the effect of heat stress on milking cows, but how can we really know its effect on dry cows? Does it even have an effect? During the dry period, the udder cells are recovering from the previous lactation and preparing for the next. This is the time to replace the old milk secretory cells and grow new cells that will support milk production in the next lactation. Heat stress during this important time of cell turnover can dramatically impact transition into the subsequent lactation.

Fermentrics is a nutritional diagnostic report unique in that it contains data generated from a novel, gas-fermentation method popular among European academic researchers. There are only a few university and corporate product development research labs in North America with gas-fermentation systems and they are not capable of processing and handling the sample volume needed in a commercial offering.

Ensiling forages, an age-old process, comes with both unavoidable and avoidable losses of nutrients. With corn at $6 per bushel and soy beans at $12 per bushel, the market value of corn silage based on its nutrient content is in excess of $70 per ton as fed or $200 per ton dry matter for a 35 percent dry matter crop – we clearly need to pay closer attention to the avoidable losses.

A key dairy nutritionist asked us to conduct a TMR audit for two reasons: First, to determine what, if any, factors might be limiting the lactation herd’s feeding system and, second, for insights on further improving the feeding management. The nutritionist had seen the results of previous TMR audits and knew the producer would welcome fine-tuning from a second set of eyes.