Who are the people behind the Proud to Dairy blog posts? Let’s get to know Ashley Howlett, a recent college graduate who has blogged about a range of topics, including her tour of China’s dairy industry, feeding acidified milk replacer and tips for incoming college students.

Dairy farmers, through their promotion checkoff investment, made it a better summer for a lot of kids again through summer feeding programs that bring milk and other nutritious foods to those in need across the country.

New England Dairy and Food Council The Fuel Up to Play 60 van made its rounds to various summer meal kickoff events across the New England region to provide fun activities and education materials for kids and families. One of its stops was at Milton Town Schools in Vermont on June 17.

U.S. dairy cattle exports remained slow in July, but with global dairy prices beginning to show signs of modest recovery, interest – if not actual sales – is providing a glimmer of hopefulness.

In 2015, U.S. dairy producers paid $73 million dollars in premiums and fees to the USDA for the Margin Protection Program for Dairy (MPP). The USDA paid out $700,000 to producers. It’s that time again for producers to choose their margin protection coverage and, with those numbers, producers have started to think MPP isn’t worth the cost.

The year of 2016 has brought a cash crunch for many dairies as extremely low milk checks through the first half of the year led to negative margins. The recent rally in milk prices, combined with now-depressed feed costs, is finally bringing some relief – along with more attractive forward margin opportunities.

As one evaluates margins, the wild fluctuation in summer markets changed the outlook of many a dairyman. Stories of coming drought and the consequential lack of feed grains caused markets to climb substantially in the second quarter of the year. Corn prices rallied 85 cents from spring lows. Soybean meal shot up $150 per ton.

With decreasing commodity prices, many farmers are looking for ways to raise cash and pay down debt. One strategy that is often considered involves selling farm assets that are no longer used (or have become unproductive).

Way back in 2005, I left the comforts of a corporate career and started a business dedicated exclusively to helping agribusiness owners plan for generational transfer.