My oldest daughter is only 10. However, much like her father, she has a very inquisitive spirit. She likes to know how things work. She asks a lot of questions. This includes questions about her future and what she will be doing and what life might be like when she is older.

In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell authored a book titled “The Tipping Point.” The tipping point, as he defines it, is that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, a drop in the crime rate.

It is quite likely that as a child you were exposed to a game known as “Musical Chairs.” A room full of children would race around an ever-declining number of chairs assembled back-to-back while a song played in the background.

2014 will be one for the record books. Never in history has a year started with Class III milk above $20 per hundredweight (cwt) and Class IV milk just shy of $22 per cwt. It is a start that many have been praying for. It is a start that many have needed. But we have seen similar starts like this before.

It has been long said that the cure for high prices is high prices. This wisdom can generally be applied to about any market one looks at. When crude oil prices spiked to $147 per barrel in 2008, it was only a short time later that prices were back below $50 per barrel.

Say it however you choose, but my grandma got a lot of mileage out of the line: “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!” As grain prices have eroded, many producers have gotten excited about the opportunities before them.

There has been much discussion about New Zealand in recent months following the drought that impacted the end of their 2012-2013 production season. Is such an event a very big deal?

As 2012 winds down, many will be doing the traditional year-end paperwork … taxes and tax planning, operating loans, financial reporting, etc. While we work to close out the year, it is imperative that we give proper time to planning the year ahead. We have talked in previous issues about the opportunities and risks that lie ahead as well as a few things that you can do to manage those situations.

As product and milk markets have climbed, producers are beginning to regain some sense of hope after being hit by the impact of what has become the worst drought in our lifetime. I am asked constantly whether this price move can last and, if so, how long. The quick response, of course, is that neither I, nor anyone else, have any absolute answers to those questions. There are some things worth considering, however, that can help frame our bias going forward. Most exciting among these things is the growing world appetite for dairy products.