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Ralph Fisher, a former Idaho state agronomist with the NRCS, explains the nine minimum requirements a dairy’s nutrient management plan must have during the Idaho Nutrient Management Conference in Jerome, Idaho, in early March.
Fisher explained that a nutrient management plan which met the requirements must be submitted with a request for a CAFO permit under soon-to-be-released new guidelines. Fisher is the regulator who reviews plans submitted to the EPA for compliance.
This issue we celebrate our 25th anniversary of the magazine. As one who has only been a part of the history of the magazine for 20 percent of that time, I am grateful to the many who came before me and laid the foundation for today’s Progressive Dairyman, including and most especially, founder and emeritus publisher Leon Leavitt.
In 1921, cooperatives and cheese factories in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, and surrounding areas created the Farmers Call Board. Weekly dealers would attend the meeting and bid on cheese. Dealers’ bids for cheese were written on a blackboard.
The highest bid would get the sale and often that price set the price for all of the cheese offered. The creators of the Farmers Call Board argued it as a necessary counterpoint to the Wisconsin Cheese Exchange (WCE), formerly the Plymouth Central Call Board of Trade.
The arguments were that the prices of the WCE represented collusive pricing between dealers, reflected a thin market and were an undue influence on the price of cheese and, therefore, milk.
As much as I’ve always enjoyed reading, my short attention span makes it impossibly difficult to finish really long books like Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. And chances are you’ve never made it all the way through the 1,208 pages either.
But if you ever took a basic economics course in school, you’re probably familiar with the economic term from Smith’s timeless writings called “the Invisible Hand.”
Now, I’m definitely not an economist. But if you don’t mind, humor me as I attempt to give my simple understanding of how the Invisible Hand works. Essentially, it represents the way human nature affects how the economy functions ... whether it’s humankind’s self-interest, fear, competitiveness, greed, uncertainty or even common sense, the Invisible Hand is our basic humanness at work.
I have been listening to all the discussions about the need for dairy producers to “market for a margin.” This approach to risk management was born out of the pain of 2009 and the desire to find some way to lock in a reasonable margin in the midst of volatile commodity markets.
While I understand the approach and why it has become a rallying cry, I believe that it sells producers short in the opportunity department. I believe our dairy producers are better than that. Or at least they deserve to hear the argument for how they could be better than that.
I’m here to suggest that, in order to achieve continuing success under today’s financial pressures, a necessary mindset shift is in order: stop thinking about “marketing for a margin” and start thinking about “maximizing opportunity.”
Dairy producers and industry professionals gathered in Amarillo, Texas, for the 2012 High Plains Dairy Conference on March 7-8. The conference was held at the Ambassador Hotel.
Todd Bilby, associate professor and extension dairy specialist, said that this year’s conference reached 275 attendees, a 10 percent increase from last time the conference was held.
“We had a phenomenal conference,” Bilby says. “A lot of the presentations were on how we can improve different efficiencies on our dairies and adapting new technologies to become more efficient in a global market.”
The cattle market, including dairy culls, is expected to see continued strength in 2012, with the potential for double-digit gains again this year – which is good news for dairy operators. The dairy industry will continue to see strong prices for its culled cows through 2012, with more upside potential than in 2011.
This rise in prices has been driven by severe weather in Texas, meat supplies lagging global income growth, a depreciation of the U.S. dollar, which encouraged beef exports and discouraged imports, and expanded export opportunities. This secondary income stream offers some reprieve to dairymen, as margins for milk have again tightened.
Most people who know me, know that I really like to plan things. In fact, most days I can get so caught up in what I’m going to do next that I forget what I am doing in the moment.
However, even with all those plans, I find the secret to successful planning is to be able to throw said plan out the window at a moment’s notice.
Do you have a business plan, a marketing plan or a liquidation plan? In general, agriculture has always been a price taker (in both inputs and outputs), and dairy is no exception, perhaps even the leader.
When milk price volatility brings negative margins, the typical producer seems to focus on cost cutting, as opposed to revenue generation. The cost cutting is then usually done without a plan and is more of a knee-jerk reaction.
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