The Dairy Together Road Show continues its trek across the U.S., seeking support for dairy policy changes providing both short-term relief and long-term structural changes.

At the Dairy Strong conference on Jan. 23, award presenter Laurie Winkelman painted a picture of someone who invests money, time and resources into promoting dairy farming and bettering the community, even in ways that don’t seem to be related to dairy farming.

I am a dairy farmer who didn’t grow up on a farm, but I always had some desire to be around dairy cattle from exposure to my dad’s family farm as a small child. That seed planted in my heart as a kid led me to join FFA, and my friends who grew up on farms were pretty willing to let me tag along and help with chores from time to time. I learned so much from not only helping with chores, but also from their parents and grandparents.

Digest Highlights

• Social Security ‘no-match’ letters: What should you do?
• Drought areas continue to shrink
• March Class III price rebounds
• 2018 mailbox prices were lower
• Midwest Dairy asks public to choose Minnesota’s ‘Flavor of the Fair’
• Consent order expedites Big Island Dairy closure
• USDA launches website feature to help manage government farm loans
• California regional water board investigating dairy lagoons
• Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers hold 99th annual meeting

A little over a week ago, our farm welcomed a TV crew onto the farm. We have had film crews on the farm, but filming a show for a national network is a whole new beast. The entire experience is intense and goes quickly. There are also a lot of people involved in filming a show.

Advances in genetics, nutrition and management have led to larger increases in milk production per cow over the past 40 years. These production increases have also led to growing heat stress problems for lactating and close-up cows in warm weather.

In his fifth edition of Dairy Cattle and Milk Production published in 1939, Dr. Clarence Eckles reported that the “ratio between the human population and the number of cows in the United States had remained essentially the same since 1850.” At that time, there were 36 million dairy cows in the U.S. producing an average of 8,700 pounds of milk per lactation.

Robotic milking systems are not for every operation. As we’ve written about previously, some of the original assumptions the industry had about the types of labor savings dairy robots would bring haven’t panned out. And for many operators, the investment is simply too steep.

There have been lots of conversations and behind-the-scenes activity related to the new federal dairy safety net program – the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program – but dairy farmers will have to wait a little longer to see the benefits.

Enrollment in the Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program isn’t scheduled to start for another couple of months, but dairy farmers participating in the program at the top margin coverage level ($9.50 per hundredweight [cwt]) on the first 5 million pounds of milk will see their premium costs covered quickly.