HOW WE MET: Phil was working in the cubicle next to me at the San Francisco International Airport earlier this year. I was waiting for a connection to Boise, Idaho, when the flight was cancelled. Phil expressed his condolences about my travel delays. I asked where he was going, and he said to Kansas City for a funeral. I exchanged my condolences.

Winston Churchill once said, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Speakers at the National Institute for Animal Agriculture’s (NIAA) Annual Conference in Denver, March 27-28, identified the opportunities in the challenges faced by those in animal agriculture and stressed the importance of feeding the world despite the challenges ahead. “We can, and will, feed the world,” stated economist Terry Barr, PhD, senior director of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division.

The byproduct of industry: The West is one of the largest sources of used lumber in the United States. The source: gigantic wooden snow fences. These elaborate wooden snow fence structures provide protection for roadways from the hazards of blowing snow throughout the winter. There are hundreds of miles of these vast wooden structures. The science and design of these massive fences cause the howling wind carrying the snow to change direction causing it to dump the snow to the ground rather than carrying it on to the highways.

This article was #6 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2012. to jump to the article. It was published in the April 10, 2012 Extra. Click here for the full list of the Top 25. South Dakota State University graduate student Kevin Herrick recently had the opportunity to tour China. His article explored the differences in the Chinese dairy industry from the U.S. as well as the challenges Chinese dairy farmers face.