Mixing milk powder in water doesn’t seem like a complicated task, but mixing properly is one of the most important things you can do for your calves. Milk replacer tags usually say to mix a specific number of ounces of powder with a specific volume of water. The confusion arises in interpretation of those simple instructions.

Progressive Dairyman wishes to thank the following members of its 2019 Spanish language advisory board. These members regularly provide input about what content gets translated into Spanish and how it is presented.

When it comes to the adoption of automated milking systems, Dr. Nigel Cook said, “The U.S. is way behind. “This is a European system being transplanted in North America and that’s great because we can learn from some of the teething problems and issues that Europe has had to deal with, but we also create some other problems and challenges that they haven’t,” he continued.

“An LLC, corporation or cooperative is a good thing,” said Rachel Armstrong, founder and executive director of Farm Commons, which offers legal education and support to farmers, seeking to encourage them and implement best legal practices.

Heavy cow culling continued to keep the lid on milk production growth in April. Monthly year-over-year output has now been up less than 1 percent in six of the past seventh months, with March 2019 production lower than the year before.

Digest Highlights

• Timeline set for RFID traceability program
• Global Dairy Trade index lower
• Dairy margins start May mixed
• Dairy-RP indemnity payment update
• Four things to know about the new Dairy Margin Coverage program
• CDI completes purchase of Hilmar milk powder facility
• Streamlined water-quality credit clearinghouse advances in Wisconsin
• SoCalGas dairy biomethane projects approved
• NMPF urges EU trade retaliation
• Beverage choices changing with McDonald’s Happy Meals
• Cornell designing milk container of the future
• Property taxes: How are yours calculated?

Rollbacks on U.S. import tariffs on aluminum and steel from Mexico and Canada could bolster exports of U.S. dairy products, while also smoothing the road for ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA).

Dairy farmers struggling to remain profitable face a dilemma: What’s good for an individual operation may not be beneficial for the industry as a whole.

About 26,000 U.S. dairy farmers will split approximately $26 million in a settlement agreement reached in a decade-long lawsuit over misreporting of nonfat dry milk prices that negatively affected the milk prices they received.

The confounding case(s) of milk supply management in a litigious society continues.