How would your plan change, if at all, the way milk is priced? The Rational Milk Pricing plan would change how milk is priced by first using a 60-month moving average to price 90 percent of a dairy’s production base. It creates a price discovery system that will involve all the buyers or processors competing for the milk in all areas of the country for the milk that is produced over the 90-percent production base. The bidding system will be component-based to determine the true value of milk’s components, which is important as milk is fractioned into many different products.

AntelBio’s expertise in developing milk sample diagnostic tests was key in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent decision to award a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant. The funding will be used to investigate novel Bovine Tuberculosis (bTB) detection methods in bulk milk samples. With new clinical bTB cases emerging in cattle in a number of states; and control and eradication programs running in the millions of dollars, identifying new cost effective screening methods would be a tremendous benefit.

The following are select comments shared during the open public comment periods at the USDA/U.S. Department of Justice dairy workshop in Madison, Wisconsin, on June 25. “We’ve always been cooperative members. … It is a relief to hear the change of direction that occurred that the Capper-Volstead Act is not under the gun. My co-op supports our family by finding the best price for our product and a low cost for our inputs. Both those needs are important, as we found out in spades in the last year and a half. As dairy producers we are tremendously good at what we do. We’re not so good at marketing most of the time.

This pdf lays out three of the most popular plans for dairy reform and compares them side-by-side, issue-by-issue.

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 political novel, The Jungle, quickly became a best seller. The fictional novel was based upon extensive research done by Sinclair in the meat packing business. The novel exposed the nation to the poverty, terrible living conditions, unsafe and unsavory working conditions and the hopelessness of the working class in the cities. A socialist, Sinclair wanted to raise concerns about workers, and his book’s focus was on those who worked in or owned the meat packing plants. But it was not the workers that got the public’s attention. Rather it was the unwholesomeness of the meat that came from the plants to the American table that raised the most concern. Even when hapless workers were killed and became part of Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard, a fictional product the plant produced, it was the product rather than the workers themselves that raised the greatest concern with readers.

Do you remember the first time you learned the valuable lesson of surrounding yourself with good people? If you think hard enough, you might just realize that you first experienced this on the playground. Although it’s tempting to tell a little white lie, I admit I was never the first person picked. But I learned quickly that if I called ‘captain’ first, then I could choose my team and avoid any chance of being left until the very end. Even as kids we quickly noticed there is a clear difference between performers and non-performers. When it was time to put our teams together, the captains chose the best kids first and left the worst ones until the end. And like life in the grown-up world, there was even some “popularity contests” or “politics” going on back then as well. But for the most part, the same top athletes were always the first to be chosen.

What is it about the fear of loss that is so strong? Why do we spend so much time worrying about what we could have had? “If only I had...” or “I should have...” or “What if...” have become classic lead-ins to what might have been. Life is full of such stories. Nearly everyone can tell you about “the one that got away.” I cannot tell you how many times I have heard dairymen reference the fact that they will not let great opportunities get away from them again. The scar of 2008 has led many to consider this idea of price risk management. Margin management has become a household term and made its way to the agenda of many “free lunch” meetings. Many are ready to address the prices that are staring us in the face now. However, large cross sections of producers are held up by a crazy little creature called cash flow. Because many producers are still healing from the wounds inflicted by the 2009 equity blowout, they are ill-equipped to add new costs to their cash flow. Does this mean that producers should avoid risk management?