Posted: February 26, 2010 at 10:36 am
By Amanda Nolz
Congratulations to Melissa Erdman, the new Michigan Senior Dairy Ambassador! Melissa is currently a student at Michigan State University, where she is on the path to become a veterinarian. Melissa impressed the judges with her extensive knowledge of the dairy industry, her passion for dairy products and her communication skills in explaining her depth of knowledge and passion with the judges. In the interview, she identified the two weaknesses facing the dairy industry as lack of consumer trust in dairy production and profitability (or lack thereof) for producers. Her proposed dairy project will focus on senior citizens and teaching them the importance of dairy as a part of a balanced diet.
Congratulations also goes to the new Michigan Junior Dairy Ambassador, Sarah Michalek. Sarah is a high school student who believes in putting 110% in everything she does. Her drive, passion and determination really convinced the judges that she would be an ideal candidate for the ambassador program. She hopes to study food science in the future, and she identified dairy public relations and fluctuating prices as two challenges facing the dairy industry. Her proposed dairy promotion project was titled, “Milk, Unlike Any Udder,” and it focused on working with students in grade six, and it included a milk label design contest.
Cheers to Melissa and Sarah, and best of luck in your year promoting dairy products to consumers! I’m confident you will do an awesome job! (Photo courtesy of Celeste Laurent)
Posted: February 25, 2010 at 4:22 pm
By Amanda Nolz
I had the great privilege and honor of meeting and working with a dynamic group of young people by serving as a judge for the 2010 Michigan Dairy Contest. The contest was held at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI earlier this month, and before the competition actually began, the contestants participated in a morning session of round table discussions with the judges including myself, Kevin Dill and Debbie Kubacki.
Participants in the junior division of the competition included: Emily DeVooght, Amanda Carey and Sarah Michalek. Senior participants included: Melissa Erdman, Olivia DeVooght, Eric Sneller, Karmen Jackson and Chelsea Jones. (Photo provided by Celeste Laurent)
Together, we discussed career opportunities in the dairy industry, problems facing dairy producers today, ways to communicate our messages to consumers, ideas for promotional events and efforts to be made in working with policy makers. This is a great group of kids, and I truly enjoyed being a part of this event. The future of the dairy industry certainly looks bright!
Posted: February 25, 2010 at 10:53 am
By Amanda Nolz
“Humor for the HEART of Agriculture,” was the title of the humorous entertainment during the general session dinner at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI last week. Behind the jokes and stories of the evening entertainment was Damian Mason. Mason is a comedian with enthusiasm for the agriculture industry. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in agriculture economics and has since studied comedy writing and improvisation at the prestigious The Second City Training Center in Chicago.
Mason did a fantastic job of combining his farm background and knowledge with his comic routine. His presentation was both relevant and uplifting, and he had the whole gang laughing the entire time. He told stories of selling beef steers and teaching his city wife the ins and outs of agriculture with Farm Camp! (A great idea, if you ask me!) He was also great at his Bill Clinton impersonations! It was truly an enjoyable meeting, and I know he got everyone in the conference excited to be in the agriculture industry once again! (Photo provided by Celeste Laurent)
Posted: February 11, 2010 at 4:10 pm
By Amanda Nolz
“Consumers are from Venus, Farmers are from Mars,” was the interesting title of the opening speech at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference given by Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Center for Food Integrity and Founder and President of CMA Consulting. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Arnot, in his message to producers to help regain consumer trust and confidence about where their food comes from…
“The Center for Food Integrity aims to build consumer trust and confidence in the contemporary U.S. food system by sharing accurate balanced information.”
“Always remember that growing food is a noble pursuit. Farmers and ranchers are looking for the freedom to operate. You didn’t get in the dairy business to tackle social issues, but we have to.”
“Social license is the privilege of operating your farm or ranch with minimal formalized restrictions (legislation and regulation) based on maintaining public trust by doing what’s right. What people want is permission to eat meat and dairy products without guilt. We have to give this permission to consumers, policy makers and media. If we don’t, we will lose our social license.”
“When people question what you do on the farm, it’s easy to become defensive. However, if you’re able to operate with a social license, you have the ability to do business that also coincides with society’s beliefs and ethics. If we control the issues, we control the debate. If we know what’s coming and what the consumers want, we can be proactive in controlling the conversation.”
“There is a growing unease with consumers about where their food comes from. Yet, agriculture has changed for the better, but we haven’t necessarily brought the consumer along for the discussion. We should never abandon science in agriculture, but sometimes that science doesn’t always connect with our consumers. We need to use emotions and ethics.”
Posted: February 9, 2010 at 9:10 pm
By Amanda Nolz
Are any of you planning to attend the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI this week? This is my second year as a speaker at this conference, and I enjoy meeting with friends, discussing the important issues facing the industry and participating in an exciting conference! (Of course, you can always count on ice cream bars and flavored milk at all of the breakout sessions, bonus!)
I speak on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. where I will be presenting, “Table Truths in a New York Minute,” a guide for producers to habitually stand up, speak out and tell their stories. At the conclusion of my speech, I will serve as a moderator on a student panel, “Issues, Engagement, Impact,” where university students will share how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions.
The next day, I will serve as a judge for the dairy ambassador contest, and on Saturday, I will take part in a youth workshop to teach these dairy kids how to always be proud of who they are and where they come from. Join me for a fun few days of friendship and forward thinking. See you in Frankenmuth, pending an avoidance of an oncoming blizzard, of course!
The last stop for the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team I traveled with last month was a dairy farm. This is the Mirhom Farag Farm, owned by Suzanne Basilios. In the video we walk through the dairy with the farm manager so you can see how the animals are kept in open lots. They are feeding hay and a lot of corn mixed with ddgs.
Posted: December 9, 2009 at 7:41 am
By Amanda Nolz
Here is some information about a group of dairy farmers from across the country who traveled recently to Washington D.C. to lobby for a competitive milk pricing system in the future, an effort to save more dairy farms from closing their doors. As told by Farm and Dairy in their article, Dairy Farmers Make One Request: Competitive Milk Pricing System, here is some information about their trip to discuss the dairy crisis with Congress.
More than 100 dairy farmers from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee traveled to Washington, D.C., Dec. 2 to meet with congressional representatives and other officials to present solutions that would end the worst dairy crisis since the Great Depression.
Dairy farmers met with members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Education and Labor Committee and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to urge immediate action to restore fairness in the dairy pricing system, enforce anti-trust laws and ensure that dairy farmers receive a fair price for their product. Dairy farmers also called on the USDA to quickly distribute emergency assistance aid that was authorized by Congress and President Obama under the 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Bill in October.
Posted: November 24, 2009 at 2:15 pm
By Amanda Nolz
Make plans to attend the Minnesota Dairy Leaders Roundtable, to be held on Thursday, Dec. 3 at the St. Paul U-M campus. The event is free and offers a wide range of topics for producers to consider including sustainability and agriculture technology. As printed in The Farmer, here are a few details about the event:
The meeting will be held from 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM in the Cherrywood Room and North Star Ballroom, St. Paul Student Center, St. Paul campus. The meeting will be held in conjunction with the CFANS Solution Driven Science Symposium “Sustainable Animal Agriculture in the 21st Century.”
Lunch (dutch treat) will be offered through food service in Student Center. Then from 1:00 – 5:00 PM, the symposium, “Sustainable Animal Agriculture in the 21st Century will be held in the North Star Ballroom.
Posted: November 2, 2009 at 6:01 pm
By Amanda Nolz
Here is a positive feature recently published in the Daily Record, Dairy farms moo-sic to her ears, written by Bobby Warren. A city girl fell in love with dairy cattle and decided to pursue her dreams despite her urban upbringing. Here is an excerpt from this exciting story…
Despite being a “city girl” while growing up in Worthington, Dianne Shoemaker fell in love with dairy cows, and it led to her studying dairy science, becoming a dairy farmer and a dairy education specialist.
As a child, Dianne Shoemaker remembers her parents taking the family to her grandparents’ in Wisconsin. Shoemaker grew up in Worthington, a suburb of Columbus, but loved looking at the dairy cows grazing in pastures along the roadways between Ohio and Wisconsin. Those fond memories of the dairy farms, barns and cows has turned into a career for Shoemaker, who recently joined Ohio State University’s Wayne County Extension Office as a dairy specialist.
While dairy is her profession, it is also her life. She and her husband, Steve, milk 170 head on their Mahoning County farm, where they have a mix of Jerseys and Holsteins. Despite being a city girl, her father told her if she wanted to study dairy, then she should study dairy. So, off she went to The Ohio State University and pursued a degree. (Photo courtesy Daily Record)
Posted: October 27, 2009 at 6:11 am
By Amanda Nolz
ABC Rural recently posted a report on live dairy cattle export numbers, and like many areas in the agriculture industry, it’s not looking positive. (Photo courtesy of Allyson Horn) Here is the most recent news…
Live dairy cattle exports are 10,000 head below expectations so far this year. Cameron Hall, from LiveCorp, says it’s likely that just 40,000 dairy heifers will be exported from Australia this year. It’s a long way short of the 58,000 that were exported to more than 15 countries last year.
“Now that’s been an impact of the global financial crisis without doubt,” he says. “You know, we’ve seen an increase in the second half of the year on Australian currency rates, we’re seeing an increase on oil prices, all of which go into increasing the cost to supply Australian dairy cattle.”
Posted: October 26, 2009 at 7:07 pm
By Amanda Nolz
Kim Souza at the Morning Business News recently reported on the dairy stimulus that will soon be assisting local farmers. Last week, President Barack Obama signed a stimulus packaged for emergency funding, and the dairy producers will get a share of this stimulus package to aid in struggling times. Read on for more information…
Local dairy farms will soon share in the $350 million emergency funding stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday. The stipend may not be enough for some struggling farms to hang on given the broad economic plight in the industry, according to dairy insiders. Dairy farmers hit rock bottom this past year, battered by price deflation and volatile grain costs, said Wayne Kellogg, dairy expert from the University of Arkansas.
Base milk prices paid to Northwest Arkansas dairies plummeted an average of 40 percent in the months of February to August, compared to a year ago, Kellogg said. The dire economic conditions have forced adjustments in the dairy sector. Many of the local farms are hanging on in anticipation of government assistance during this crisis, Kellogg said.
Local farms likely will receive a direct payment ranging from 15 cents per 100 pounds of milk production to $1.80 per hundredweight, said Jackie Klippenstein, vice president of industrial and legislative affairs for Dairy Farmers of America. (Hundredweight is the standard unit of measure for milk, it is equal to 100 pounds.) There are any number of ways for the government to calculate payments.
Posted: October 17, 2009 at 11:44 am
By Amanda Nolz
Recently printed in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, an article titled, “Mad ‘cows’ protest plan to cull Cal Poly dairy herd,” written by David Sneed describes how students dressed in cattle costumes to support dairy program, which could lose 120 of its animals. In an effort to save money, Cal Poly is planning on reducing their cow herd, leaving many students upset about the loss of a good program. Read more to learn all about it…
Some Cal Poly students Friday protested plans to reduce the university’s dairy cow herd by 80 percent. Dairy students — some dressed in cow costumes — protested in the morning outside the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, where Cal Poly’s dairy science advisory committee was meeting. Protests continued in the afternoon at the school’s dairy unit. In a letter sent Sept. 30, Dairy Science Department Head Bruce Golden said that plummeting milk prices and state budget cutbacks were forcing the university to reduce the milking herd to 30 animals from 150. He promised to restore the herd once finances improve.
However, students are concerned that the cuts may be permanent and 106 years of building good genetics into the Holstein milking herd will be lost, said Theresa Machado, president of the Los Lecheros Dairy Club. The Dairy Science Department has 130 students, 48 of them freshmen, Machado said. They operate the only dairy in the county, and Cal Poly is one of only two schools in the nation to offer degrees in dairy science. According to the program’s Web site, it is the only university on the West Coast to offer a specific dairy science major, and Cal Poly has the country’s largest dairy science program.
Posted: October 15, 2009 at 5:45 pm
By News Editor
The Wisconsin Dairy Business Association announces their tenth annual business conference – “Looking Ahead, Leading the Way.” Join more than 300 dairy industry friends and partners on December 1 & 2 at the Madison Concourse Hotel in Madison, Wis.
This two-day event brings together dairy leaders to tackle the tough issues facing the industry. The conference will cover topics ranging from immigration reform, the WPDES permitting process, the environment…and most importantly, the state of our economy. Expert speakers and panelists are ready to reveal what the future holds for these topics and more.
We kick off the first day with an expert panel to address immigration raids and the need for immigration reform. Panelists include Jaime Castaneda of the National Milk Producer Federation; Randy Johnson with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and Tamar Jacoby of ImmigrationWorks USA (Invited). Following is Trent Loos, proclaimed American farmer and perennial favorite at the Annual Business Conference. A panel of dairy producers will then take the stage to join Sam Miller of M&I Bank for an in-depth discussion on thriving financially in the aftermath of this year’s economic downturn. Rounding out the line-up for the afternoon is a panel moderated by Dennis Frame of Discovery Farms with special guests Professor Andrew Sharpley and DNR Planner Buzz Sorge to delve into increased regulations and requirements on the state’s dairy industry. A cheese and wine reception, dinner and networking will follow.
On the morning of Wednesday, December 2, DNR Bureau Director Russ Rasmussen discusses streamlining of the WPDES permitting process; and back by popular demand, Wall Street’s own Stephen Moore will once again provide an insider’s look at the nation’s economic situation. Our action-packed morning continues with Charlie Arnot of The Center for Food Integrity tackling the issue of building consumer confidence in light of public industry attacks; followed by an in-depth discussion on the state’s economy with Thomas Hefty of Cobalt Corporation and John Torinus of Serigraph Inc. We conclude our conference with research scientist Mark Borchardt speaking on sources and risks of fecal-borne pathogens.
Posted: September 25, 2009 at 12:23 pm
By Amanda Nolz
The Beef Quality Assurance Program recently released its latest summary in a pilot project study that was conducted in collaboration with the Idaho Beef Council and California Beef Council. The summary evaluated the quality of market dairy cows being sold at auction. Here is an excerpt from the press release…
Jason K. Ahola, former University of Idaho Extension Beef Specialist now with Colorado State University, and Holly A. Foster, independent contractor for the California Beef Council, recently released an executive summary for a Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) pilot project. The study summarized in the publication is based on procedures that have been utilized in previous checkoff-funded quality audits and was designed to give dairy producers more information about how their animals are valued within the beef chain when they are sold through auction markets.
“Trickle-down economics is observed daily in the salvage cattle market,” says Gary Smith, Ph.D., Monfort Endowed Chair in Meat Science, Colorado State University. “Packer-buyers pay more for animals that will yield more or higher-quality products – and that goes straight to the producers’ bottom line.”
The goal of this project was to provide dairy producers information that was not previously available about the potential value of their market cows and bulls. It also underscores that existing industry recommendations to cull animals in a timely manner are one of the best measures to maintain their value and enhance their carcass quality.
Posted: September 20, 2009 at 5:35 am
By Amanda Nolz
“From Science, Plenty of Cows, but Little Profit,” was the titled of a New York Times piece written by William Neuman, and it offers insights on the state of the dairy industry today. While granting that technology has advanced the efficiency of all dairy farms, they explained the troubling times facing dairy producers in the markets. Check out this balanced article; it’s one worth reading. Here is an excerpt…
Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers.
Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse.
The dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it.
Posted: September 11, 2009 at 5:13 am
By Amanda Nolz
The High Plains Journal recently reported on an increasing number of dairy producers whom are standing up to tell others about the dire situation they have found themselves in during the past year. Here is what the article had to say…
America’s dairy producers find themselves in a “price-cost squeeze” between plummeting milk prices and feed costs that have remained high. Several public and private assistance initiatives are in place, but relief is not yet being fully felt at the farm gate, an Iowa dairy farmer today told a House Agriculture subcommittee.
Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Lang, partner in a dairy with his father, brother and sons, testified on behalf of the American Farm Bureau Federation before the subcommittee on livestock, dairy and poultry during a hearing on the economic challenges facing the dairy sector.
Lang said that due to historically low milk prices, his family and a number of other dairy producers have depleted cash that was put aside during positive economic years, and they are “now using a bank line of credit to help pay for daily operations.”
Coming off positive economic returns in 2007 and most of 2008, farmers responded to market signals to produce more milk. Lang explained that last fall, factors such as the global economic recession and a stronger dollar effectively shut down the international market for U.S. dairy goods.
Lang said “the demand shock from the evaporation of the international marketplace, excess supply being thrust upon the domestic marketplace, and shrinking margins of income over feed costs” are putting dairy farmers at financial risk.
Posted: September 10, 2009 at 7:09 pm
By Amanda Nolz
According to AgWeb.com, dairy culling remains strong in the United States dairy herd. Are you culling many of your cows? Does this ring true in your area?
U.S. dairy farmers sent 228,000 dairy cows to slaughter through Federally-inspected plants in July, USDA reports this morning. That’s 19,000 more than July of 2008 but 28,000 head less than June of this year.
The wild swings in numbers, a 9% increase over last July but an 11% decrease from June, is likely due the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program. The 7th round of CWT took 105,000 head earlier this summer, but when they actually moved to slaughter depended on when auditors could verify individual herds.
Year-to-date, dairy cow slaughter is running 205,000 head above last year, a 14% increase.
Here’s another story about dairymen and allied industries coming together to discuss the current milk market, and their concerns about it. Farmers in Ohio met to discuss the market effects of imports, marketing organizations and supply and demand, while a panel of experts spanning California to New York presented their plan for a new system of marketing milk.
Past U.S. Holstein Association President Doug Maddox said the fallout in dairy prices goes deeper than the current generation. He farms in California, where he operates RuAnn Dairy, one of the world’s largest registered dairy farms.
“This crisis that we’re in right now and how we solve it is as much about who and what controls our future, and our dairy industry, as it is about the prices and the current situation,” Maddox said. “Either the dairy farmers are going to control the industry and manage our supply and set our prices, or the processors and the large companies.”
Maddox said a dairy farmer is typically losing $3-$4 a day per cow, or $100 per cow per month. Farm equity is being turned into bank loans, and farmers are exiting the industry altogether, by choice or by force, and a few have exited by suicide, he said.
The meeting was organized by Ohio Farmers Union and a host of local sponsors in hopes of gathering more producer perspectives and educating farmers and consumers about the dairy industry.
New York dairy farmer John Bunting discussed the impact to the market of dairy processors and marketing cooperatives, as well as imported milk protein concentrate.
The country imported about 16 million pounds of milk protein concentrates in 2008, according to information Bunting compiled from the U.S. International Trade Commission. That’s up from 2007 imports of 14 million pounds, and 2006 imports of about 12 million pounds.
Milk protein concentrate is the industry term used to describe a form of processed, dried milk used in foods such as processed cheese products, macaroni and cheese, protein bars, nutritional drinks, candy bars and cookies.
Bunting is one of a growing number of dairy farmers who say imports are partly to blame for their struggles.
But not everyone agrees.
Maddox said imports are a factor but the industry is ultimately experiencing woes because of an imbalance of supply and demand.
“You can blame all the other things, but it all gets back to supply and demand; it’s economics 101,” Maddox said.
He is an advocate for the Dairy Price Stabilization program, a newly formed effort to stabilize the market through a mandatory, self-funded growth-control program.
The current milk price has spurred many dairy farmers into action, getting them more involved in how their milk is marketed. A group of dairymen from western N.Y. and several even from Pennsylvania, met to discuss the Federal Milk Marketing Improvement Act of 2009 last week, at a dairy rally held in N.Y.
A group of more than 150 dairy farmers, their family members, a handful of local officials, farmer union leaders and Congressman Eric Massa, D-29, addressed the audience and talked about the act. The proposed legislation, brought forward by Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa, and Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., would change the amount farmers are paid for milk to the national average cost of production, eliminate reference to the Chicago Mercantile exchange in determining milk prices paid to dairy farmers and encourage new dairy farmers to produce milk by allowing them to be exempt from inventory management costs in their first year, among other things.
“This will provide a floor under the price of milk that will keep a majority of our dairy farmers in business, give them an opportunity to pay their bills and have an extremely modest level of income,” said Larry Breech, president of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union.
Breech said there is tremendous amount of opposition to the legislation, but it insists that dairy farmers all of the country will begin closing if some governmental action is not taken.
“Dairy co-ops have miserably failed to represent their members and that’s why we are at the pint we are at now,” he said.
“Right now dairy farmers have seen a 47 percent drop in the prices they were getting last year and we have to get them some short-term relief immediately,” said Arden Tewksbury, manager of the Progressive Agriculture Organization.
“There are many farms that are going to be closing soon. People argue the number is as high as 25 or 35 percent,” he said.
Dairy farmers at the rally said they are getting as low as $10 to $12 a hundredweight, an amount they say doesn’t even cover operation costs.
A study by Cornell University estimated that farmers need to be paid at least $17 per hundredweight to cover production expenses.
“Because we have married ourselves to a free trade system that gives everything away and does not protect our consumers the international market collapsed and here we are sitting on huge surpluses,” Massa said. “By the way, you saw the price of milk at the producer drop by 50 percent, but we never saw the price of milk in retail drop that much. Now, somebody is making a hell of a lot of money, and candidly, it is not much different then we saw in the petroleum industry. The price of crude went from, what was it, $140? To $50 a barrel and yet the prices at the pump did not drop that same ratio.”
These stories are kind of hard to hear, but I imagine there are many dairy farmers that can relate to this scenario. This article was written by Dennis Pollock for the Western Farm Press. Here is an excerpt…
FRED MACHADO, Easton, Calif., 77 years old, spent more than a six decades milking cows, but the dairy he started in 1950 now stands silent, a casualty of an almost unprecedented depression for California dairymen.
On that table is a decorative, wooden likeness of a cow that holds a floral display. In time, such decorations – wooden cows over his fireplace mantle, cow bookends in his office, another cow holder for flowers outside – will be the only cows in Machado’s life for the first time in nearly 70 years.
Machado still has 500 heifers, but he’ll sell them, too. His milking days, which started in the Azores when he was 8 years old, are over. His milking parlor is empty and still now, and his corrals are mostly empty. Machado and family members concede the decision to close their dairy operation and sell the animals was a wrenching one. But they saw it as necessary because they were losing $70,000 a month by keeping it in operation.
“It was a family decision,” Machado says. “It was not what we wanted to do, but it was the best thing for us to do. It feels kind of empty, but we’ll get by.
“We didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. There were two choices – mortgage our land to stay in a losing business or get out and save the farm.”
Congratulations to Melissa Erdman, the new Michigan Senior Dairy Ambassador! Melissa is currently a student at Michigan State University, where she is on the path to become a veterinarian. Melissa impressed the judges with her extensive knowledge of the dairy industry, her passion for dairy products and her communication skills in explaining her depth of knowledge and passion with the judges. In the interview, she identified the two weaknesses facing the dairy industry as lack of consumer trust in dairy production and profitability (or lack thereof) for producers. Her proposed dairy project will focus on senior citizens and teaching them the importance of dairy as a part of a balanced diet. 
Congratulations also goes to the new Michigan Junior Dairy Ambassador, Sarah Michalek. Sarah is a high school student who believes in putting 110% in everything she does. Her drive, passion and determination really convinced the judges that she would be an ideal candidate for the ambassador program. She hopes to study food science in the future, and she identified dairy public relations and fluctuating prices as two challenges facing the dairy industry. Her proposed dairy promotion project was titled, “Milk, Unlike Any Udder,” and it focused on working with students in grade six, and it included a milk label design contest.
I had the great privilege and honor of meeting and working with a dynamic group of young people by serving as a judge for the 2010 Michigan Dairy Contest. The contest was held at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI earlier this month, and before the competition actually began, the contestants participated in a morning session of round table discussions with the judges including myself, Kevin Dill and Debbie Kubacki.
“Humor for the HEART of Agriculture,” was the title of the humorous entertainment during the general session dinner at the 2010 Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference in Frankenmuth, MI last week. Behind the jokes and stories of the evening entertainment was Damian Mason. Mason is a comedian with enthusiasm for the agriculture industry. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in agriculture economics and has since studied comedy writing and improvisation at the prestigious The Second City Training Center in Chicago. 
“Consumers are from Venus, Farmers are from Mars,” was the interesting title of the opening speech at the 
Are any of you planning to attend the 2
I speak on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. where I will be presenting, “Table Truths in a New York Minute,” a guide for producers to habitually stand up, speak out and tell their stories. At the conclusion of my speech, I will serve as a moderator on a student panel, “Issues, Engagement, Impact,” where university students will share how they have become engaged on the front lines to speak up about industry issues and the impacts of their actions. 
Here is some information about a group of dairy farmers from across the country who traveled recently to Washington D.C. to lobby for a competitive milk pricing system in the future, an effort to save more dairy farms from closing their doors. As told by Farm and Dairy in their article, 
Make plans to attend the Minnesota Dairy Leaders Roundtable, to be held on Thursday, Dec. 3 at the St. Paul U-M campus. The event is free and offers a wide range of topics for producers to consider including sustainability and agriculture technology. As printed in 
Despite being a “city girl” while growing up in Worthington, Dianne Shoemaker fell in love with dairy cows, and it led to her studying dairy science, becoming a dairy farmer and a dairy education specialist.
Kim Souza at the
Recently printed in the San Luis Obispo Tribune, an article titled, 
The 
The Beef Quality Assurance Program recently released its latest summary in a pilot project study that was conducted in collaboration with the Idaho Beef Council and California Beef Council. The summary evaluated the quality of market dairy cows being sold at auction. Here is an excerpt from the press release…
Here’s another story about dairymen and allied industries coming together to discuss the current milk market, and their concerns about it.