J.D. Heiskell Holdings, LLC doing business as J.D. Heiskell & Co. announced that on Friday, January 14, 2011 it acquired Hawkeye Gold LLC, an ethanol and ethanol co-products marketing business with offices in Ames, Iowa. Heiskell will acquire all employees and assets of Hawkeye Gold LLC and will continue to operate the business under its current name in Ames, Iowa.

The following producers were chosen by a committeee of industry professionals and dairymen as the newest, most innovative dairy products and will be showcased during World Ag Expo Feb. 8-10 in Tulare, California. Progressive Dairyman asked each of the product inventors or sponsoring companies to discuss how their products fill an industry need. (Click on the title of the product to download a pdf.)

For the first time in 44 years, World Ag Expo is going mobile. Available for both the iPhone and all phones with the Android Market, World Ag Expo's Application gives its users access to everything the expo has to offer. "World Ag Expo 2011 is themed Tools for Agri-Business, and our new app is just that - a tool for success at the expo," said Lee Coito, 2011 Chairman. "Our app adds another free option for our attendees, building on our success in providing tools to help attendees identify in advance the exhibitors and seminars they want to see."

Optimistic outlook for 2011 Click here to download a pdf of the Export Watch department from Issue 2 2011, featuring updates from the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

The focus of the sixth annual I-29 Dairy Conference will be on helping dairy producers provide their cows with the best possible care. The event will be held Feb. 9-10, 2011, at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Feeding and management practices of dairy calves directly impact not only their survival, but as importantly, their future milk production. Recent studies which have followed calves through their first lactation have shown a positive relationship between early life nutrient intake and first-lactation milk production. In addition, new research has shown additional benefits of proper colostrum intake on calf health.

Management guru Peter Drucker, who helped launch the field of management in 1945 and who died in 2005, is credited with coining the phrase “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Managers make lots of decisions every day, maybe as many as a hundred or more. Some of these are very important, others may be less so. Robert Lewis, a business consultant who spoke of Drucker at the 17th American Dairy Science Association Discover Conference on Dairy Herd Analytics, made the case in his opening presentation to the group that you shouldn’t “trust trusting your gut” when making decisions.

The following statements were recently made as testimony before the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) public workshops to examine margins at various levels of the agricultural supply chain. “We need the milk pricing system fixed. If we want young farmers to come into the industry they need to be paid a living. Everyone in the chain can adjust their margin accordingly and earn a living except for the farmer. "And if Antitrust Division and USDA doesn’t step it up and ensure that farmers earn a living first, and everyone else adjust their margins accordingly thereafter, the entire system will fail, rural America will fail, our farmers and our nation as a whole will fail, just because our whole infrastructure relies on our farmers who produce 70 percent of the world’s raw material.”

Managing data has never been more important. The volatility of today’s markets demands that dairy producers be mindful of every aspect of their farms. At the Vita Plus Dairy Summit last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota, three dairy producers outlined the management systems they use to keep their dairies running lean. Sam Dilsaver Sam Dilsaver is a managing partner in Hillcrest Dairy located near Elmwood, Illinois. The dairy started in 2007 as a partnership between Sam and a family friend in California. Currently they milk 1,500 cows three times per day at this dairy. The cows are milking between 72 and 78 pounds per day with an emphasis on high components.