Posted: February 5, 2010 at 6:24 pm
By News Editor
A video showing how to properly open milk in a bag has gone viral! Americans – tell us what you think, milk in bags: weird or smart?
In the video, Sheryl Ng lays out a bag of 2%, a jug and a pair of scissors. She runs through the milk drinker’s skillset: the proper triangular cut, the cautious first pour, preventive measures to keep an overfull bag from collapsing. Collectively, the viewing world outside Ontario leaned back in its seat and said, “What the hell is that?”
Apparently not. Ontario, the world has seen your milk drinking habits, and the world now thinks you’re a weirdo. Ng posted her milk-drinking video as a way of illustrating the differences between Canadians and Americans. They drink milk out of jugs. We drink it out of bags. She titled the whimsical instructional, “Milk in bags, eh?”
Bagged milk also hits an impassable imaginary wall at the 49th parallel. Almost uniformly, Americans are jug/carton people. Wisconsinites, people who know something about dairy, buck that trend. Among other forward-thinking nations that have warmed up to the plastic udder — South Africans, Argentines, Hungarians and Chinese. Those latter also bag beer, which means we have some catching up to do. The Soviets used milk bags, though central Europeans rushed to embrace the carton once the Wall came down. For ten shekels, Israelis can buy a Kankomat — a bag-holder that includes its own cutting device.
Posted: February 5, 2010 at 5:28 pm
By News Editor
New Zealand’s Fonterra dairy is in negotiations to lease land in China by mid-year. The land would be used for two New Zealand-style dairy farms in the world’s largest emerging dairy market.
Fonterra China managing director Philip Turner said with the firm’s pilot farm in Hangu, in Hebei province, performing profitably ahead of schedule and producing record levels of milk, the time was right for further investment.
The China dairy market is forecast to show double-digit annual growth over the next 10 years. The domestic dairy industry was developing quickly but the current supply of high-quality fresh milk could not keep up with demand, Mr Turner said from Beijing.
Milk safety in China is of high public concern after deliberate melamine poisoning of milk supplies two years ago caused the deaths of several babies and made thousands of infants ill with kidney problems. The melamine was added to raw milk supplies to processing factories to artificially increase protein levels, thereby drawing a higher price.
Fonterra’s joint processing venture SanLu was involved in the crisis, along with more than 20 other plants. SanLu was bankrupted and Fonterra is no longer involved in processing in China but is expected to announce a new venture soon.
The planned new farms would be of a similar size and carry around 3300 milking cows.
They would be a mix of cows imported from New Zealand and those raised on Fonterra’s pilot farm, Mr Turner said. Tangshan Fonterra Farm is producing its second generation of China-born heifers. Half of the herd has been raised from the original imported friesian herd.
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.
The face and voice of the U.S. Grains Council in Egypt is Dr. Hussein Soliman pictured in the center of the USGC Corn Mission group I traveled with last month. He has been working on behalf of U.S. grain producers for almost 20 years and has not only seen Egypt become one of our top importers but can take a lot of the credit for helping make it happen. You won’t find anyone more passionate about what he does. All of us on the team are very appreciative of his assistance and guidance while visiting this week.
I spoke to Dr. Soliman while we were at one of the Mirhom Farag Farms, owned by Suzanne Basilios, also in center of the photo. She treated us to a wonderful meal at her dairy and I’ll have a video clip of it coming up soon.
Dr. Soliman provides a very good summary of the work the USGC has done in Egypt and the results he’s seen over the years. The market is far from mature and in fact will grow tremendously, especially when the poultry sector gets back to normal. In the meantime, the biggest opportunities lie in beef and dairy production.
You can listen to my interview with Dr. Soliman below:
The Chairman of the Egyptian Buffalo Producer’s Association is Dr. Saad Alhayani (pictured left). He also owns and operates a very new open water buffalo feedlot and dairy. The U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team I recently traveled with visited. These cute, sweet, little creatures are very different than your average bovine.
Dr. Alhayani says he imports frozen semen to assist in breeding better quality animals which is something relatively new to the country. He’s raising thousands of buffalo and feeding them corn and ddgs as well as other ingredients. We saw lots of bags of ddgs at his feedlot. That looked very positive for American corn growers! He says sometimes they blend as much as 25% ddgs in the feed.
His goal is to produce a few thousand pregnant heifers for local producers and maybe even to export. He appreciates the assistance he’s received from the USGC.
You can listen to my interview with Dr. Alhayani’s below and watch a video clip of him showing us his operation as well:
While I was participating in the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission in Egypt we received another presention on the Cattle Information Center at Cairo University by Dr. Samy Abou-Bakr.
He describes that there are two different water buffalo dairy and feedlot systems. One is old and one is new. In the older model, the herd size is small, handled with lots of labor and very little if any records are kept. In the new, the herds are larger commercial operations of over 50 head of animals. Records are being kept and animals are being bred for desirable characteristics.
What this all means for American grain growers is that as the beef and dairy sector grows in Egypt it continues to become a growth market for our products.
I had the honor and pleasure to participate in a U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission trip recently. We visited Morocco, Egypt and Jordan to see how efforts to create new markets for corn are going. The dairy industry in these countries played a key role in our meetings and tour stops. I’m going to post some of the stories of what I found for you over the next several days starting with this one.
The first stop for the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission team in Egypt was Cairo University and specifically the ag school. Our first presenter was Dr. Rabie Ragab Sadek who gave us an overview of the Cattle Information Systems Center of Egypt. The project was created to develop a cattle information system that would provide statistically representative, adequate data for cattle breeding research and for the future development of a national breeding program. The goal to create genetic improvement of both milk and meat producing cattle and buffalo.
He introduces our other presenters who would speak about specifics about the accomplishments of the University’s dairy herd improvement unit.
IDF World Dairy Summits tackle issues that are ‘top of mind’ for the global dairy sector. The objectives of IDF Summits include identifying trends, formulating strategies to improve the overall performance of the industry and strengthening the industry’s ability to meet new challenges. The overall theme chosen for WDS2010, “Discover…natural inspiration” will capture the latest initiatives across the dairying spectrum to meet these objectives.
WDS 2010 provides the opportunity to:
• Report the results of completed research;
• Describe research in progress;
• Present a position on an issue related to the conference themes.
Posted: November 4, 2009 at 10:16 am
By Amanda Nolz
Carol Ryan Dumas recently wrote an article, Study weighs dairy industry’s social impact, published in the Capital Press. The reported study indicates the growth of the Hispanic workforce as a key part on the discussion. This has some interesting findings that are definitely worth reading. Check it out…
Unprecedented growth in Idaho’s dairy industry over the past decade brought both economic gains and concerns about the community impact of a growing Hispanic workforce. Paralleling the industry’s expansion and geographic concentration, Southern Idaho’s Hispanic population has grown by 85 percent since 2000.
Perceptions that foreign workers are overburdening schools, health-care services and the justice system led dairymen to fund a University of Idaho study of the community impacts of a changing industry and a changing demographic. The two-year study, costing more than $60,000, was released this week.
“We asked the university for the study to quantify perceptions and offer solutions,” said Bob Naerebout, executive director of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “We wanted the study to try to understand what the actual impacts are. We knew there would be positives and negatives.”
What resulted was a long, complicated study on those community impacts, the only one of its kind, said Priscilla Salant, UI outreach and engagement coordinator and one of the lead researchers.
What the study found was mostly positive, she said.
Posted: October 20, 2009 at 7:53 pm
By News Editor
Dairy Crest, the UK’s leading chilled dairy foods company, has announced an exciting new service, that is both a blast from the past and a modern convenience! Called “milk & more,” customers can receive personal delivers of milk by a milkman! But this 21st century modern milkman has gone digital and moved online, transforming a service that originally started in the late 1850s.
The milkman as we know him started when customer demand for home milk delivery prompted the milkman to pick up a low-wheeled cart to make his many deliveries. Since then the milkman has become a reliable fixture in the local community and a much loved British institution, with 62% of Brits naming the milkman as someone that represents what the traditional community is all about.* Now he’s online and the product range has expanded so that homes throughout much of England and Wales can order more than 250 everyday essentials to be delivered to their doorstep at the click of a button.
Guy Whittaker, a milkman from Guildford, said: “So much has changed in the past 150 years but one thing people have always been able to rely on is that their local milkman delivers to them come rain or shine. 43% of Brits that already get their milk delivered have carried on the tradition from their parents, having fond memories as children.** We wanted to extend our service so that our customers could rely on us for more than just milk which is why the new milk&more service is so great.”
Dairy Crest spokesperson, Mike Sheldon, commented: “milk&more combines the tradition and familiarity of the doorstep milk delivery service with the convenience of online shopping. It’s still your local milkman but a brand new service, bringing homes a range of products from breakfast essentials to cleaning and garden products.”
Posted: October 15, 2009 at 5:40 pm
By News Editor
Supermarket giant Tesco has become the first UK retailer to display the full carbon footprint of milk – one of the top-selling products in its stores.
All Tesco own-label full-fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk ranges will display the carbon footprint label as part of an on-going drive to help shoppers make “green” purchasing decisions. It has pledged to “footprint” 500 products by the end of the year. The new labelling will not apply to organic milk, where greenhouse gas emissions are generally much lower than for conventional milk.
The move comes alongside new research which found that 50% of customers surveyed now understand the correct meaning of the term “carbon footprint”, compared with only 32% of people surveyed in 2008. The research also revealed that customers increasingly want to be green. Over half said they that would seek lower carbon footprint products as part of their weekly shop, compared with only 35% last year.
Tesco community and government director David North said: “We’re using [milk] to play an important new role in helping our customers understand climate change, the carbon footprints of products, and what steps they can take to help. Milk is not only one of the biggest sellers in store; it’s also prominent on breakfast tables day in day out across the country. So we think carbon labels on milk can play a great part in raising awareness and helping customers navigate the new carbon currency.”
Tesco said that with milk it is the agricultural stage that accounts for by far the biggest portion of the carbon footprint – in this case the most significant factor being methane emissions from the cows themselves. Tesco is already working to reduce these emissions alongside the dairy industry and farmersthrough the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group and Dairy Centre of Excellence at the University of Liverpool.
The Carbon Trust is working with Dairy UK to help the milk industry understand more about its carbon footprints as a route to greater emission reductions, he added.
Posted: October 13, 2009 at 5:19 pm
By News Editor
The current state of the Chinese dairy industry is described best as being in a period of transition, with small herd owners and managers facing the decision between expanding their operation and going out of business. As low milk prices continue to create a challenge for smaller producers, it is anticipated the trend toward larger operations will be steady, in order to balance the rising costs of doing business.
This rapid herd expansion creates an identified need for the continued education of dairy producers on modern dairy management practices, with close attention being paid to developing least cost ration formulations, while maintaining the integrity and nutrient content of feed ingredients. With this in mind, the U.S. Grains Council recently sponsored a Chinese Dairy Study Team to the United States.
The team’s itinerary included activities encompassing all aspects of the dairy business, from corn and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) production to modern facilities, farm equipment and genetics, giving participants a breadth of exposure to U.S. industry technology and trends. Attending a short course specially designed for the group by the Babcock Institute, team members were trained by university instructors who are experts in their fields.
The team was also afforded the opportunity to visit World Dairy Expo, meeting with agribusiness representatives, attending seminars and discussing dairy techniques with dairy producers from 88 countries. Walter Chen, USGC consultant who traveled with the team, said the participants were very impressed with U.S. dairy management systems and was optimistic about the future of the Chinese dairy industry.
“This is also a good opportunity for them to learn more about U.S. DDGS,” said Chen.
As the price of Chinese corn is on the rise, the Council has seen rapid growth in DDGS imports, with approximately 250,000 to 300,000 metric tons estimated to be imported in 2009. These numbers far exceed the 8,000 tons imported in all of 2008. In order to give the team an in-depth view of the production and utilization of the co-product DDGS, they met with ethanol plant manager and toured their facilities, as well as visiting dairy operations in Wisconsin and California.
With the information the team gained from this study tour, “There is a lot of hope for the import of DDGS and some U.S. feed grains,” said Chen.
Several European partners will aggregate the reference populations they are using for a number of Holstein breeding programs. A reference population is a group of bulls with breeding values from progeny tests and known DNA profiles. It provides breeding organizations the indispensable basis for the calculation of reliable genomic effects and genomic breeding values. The enlargement of the total reference population within EuroGenomics will therefore further increase the reliability of genomic breeding.
The aggregation of the reference populations will take place in two steps, resulting in a total reference population of 16,000 proven bulls by the end of this year. This first common European reference population will be one of the largest in the world.
The customers of the EuroGenomics partners will benefit highly from this important cooperation, because it will further improve the accuracy and reliability of the genomic breeding values. Furthermore the ongoing development of genomic selection will result in extra genetic progress and eventually lower costs of the individual breeding programs, retaining the same or even higher quality. EuroGenomics will therefore position Europe as a leading continent in the world of Holstein breeding.
The following partners are the founders of EuroGenomics:
UNCEIA – French national Association of Livestock & Artificial Insemination Cooperatives
CRV – International cattle improvement organisation with headquarters in the Netherlands
DHV and vit – German national umbrella organization of the Holstein breeding industry and the German computing centre of cattle data
VikingGenetics – Danish-Swedish cattle breeding association
The above mentioned partners will be working closely together with a number of research partners, amongst which are the University of Liège (Belgium), INRA (French research centre), the Nordic Cattle Genetic Evaluation and Aarhus University/Foulum (Denmark).
Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health announced that it has initiated a multi-year sponsorship project, supporting the Shire Highlands Milk Producers Association (SHMPA) in Malawi, a developing country in southeast Africa. The primary objective of the project is to support smallholder dairy farmers in the Shire Highlands to improve their capabilities to manage the milk production process.
Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health will provide financial and in-kind support that can annually be adapted as specified by SHMPA. Support will initially focus on increasing milk production by improvement of animal health and infrastructure. Short-term projects include the provision of funds to build and equip a veterinary laboratory as well as the supply of some urgently needed veterinary diagnostics and medicines. The scope of the support may also be extended to the improvement of milk quality, animal husbandry (nutrition, reproduction and breeding) and farm management. In-kind support may consist of the sharing of veterinary expertise as well as offering education and training.
“The challenges in dairy farming in this part of the world are many, and the road to progress is far from smooth, but most of the time in the right direction. Some of our biggest challenges are making sure that milk farmers have access to artificial insemination and veterinary services. We hope that through our links with Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health we will improve these services,” commented SHMPA Dairy Development Advisor Brian Lewis.
“We are proud to be able, with the help of veterinarians who purchase our products, to assist milk farmers in the Shire Highlands in a sustainable manner that contributes to economic improvement in Southern Malawi,” said Edival Santos, vice president, Global Ruminant Business Unit at Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health.
Materials will preferably be sourced on site, thereby sustaining the local economy. The funds are earmarked for specific objectives and SHMPA management will be responsible for using these resources efficiently and reporting on their allocation.
Funding will be generated by customer-focused, sales-related incentive programs linked to the cattle business of participating country operations. This model is already being used successfully by Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health to support the Afya Serengeti project, a dog rabies eradication program in Tanzania.
What are the 5 things you would do differently in dairy today? That was the question our opening panel on the final day of the Global Dairy 500 Conference had to answer. Amazingly they each seemed to have very similar answers.
I spoke with panelist Nigel Lok, Nigel Lok Family Trust, South Africa. He says they milk about 700 cows.
The future of milk marketing was the subject of our last panel of the day here at the Global Dairy 500 Conference. The afternoon activities include tours of the Alltech headquarters and a dinner at Kentucky Horse Park.
I spoke with Harm Holman, European Dairy Farmers, Netherlands after the session concluded. He’s pictured tall and in the middle. Harm says he milks 140 cows.
He says it’s very important to be an entrepreneur that has to make a profit and to be competitive. Like other panelists he sees larger farms and less farmers in the future. In his part of the world he says that those who have the most simple systems are doing the best. He also believes that becoming more efficient and lowering input costs is vital to success in dairy farming today. He’s optimistic for the best farmers in the future, meaning that not everyone will survive in the next 5 to 10 years.
To provide a global perspective on dairy systems the Global Dairy 500 Conference featured a panel with participants from the USA, New Zealand and South Africa. I spoke with Bryan Beeston, Dairy Business Centre, New Zealand, seated on the right. He’s a dairy farmer involved in a collective type dairy company.
Bryan says he moved to New Zealand to start a dairy farm and the opportunities there worked very well for him. He says they have younger farmers and opportunities that allow them to stair step their way into a dairy farm. One way they accomplish this is with a share milk system that allows someone to get started with a vested interest in the dairy and they get paid based on how efficient and profitable they are. They can then move up to owning their own cows and plants.
Bryan is very enthusiastic about the future of dairy farmer. He says there are areas like Asia where a lot of opportunity exists to help feed people in a growing economy.
At an international conference like the Global Dairy 500 Conference translators are absolutely necessary. We have many of them here. During a break this morning I spoke with Irina Zablith (right) who is not only a translator but a veterinarian from Brazil. She’s translating into Portugese.
She says it’s simultaneous translation. They do get some pre-talk information like power point slides but not an actual written speech. She says it becomes challenging at times when a speaker talks very fast.
Irina says the global market has grown to the point of needing more translations so she started working with groups of Brazilians who would travel to other countries and needed her service. She travels to conferences like this several times a year.
In the theme of global dairy farming we had discussion dinner tables with international people like at my table where we had farmers from the USA, Colombia, Brazil and South Africa.
There were six different topics for each discussion dinner room. Mine focused on silage but others included mastitis and somatic cell count control, reproduction, the importance of grazing, economics of scale: large herd sizes and toxins and toxicology.
It’s always good to hear what other dairy farmers have to say. In this video clip you can hear several of the farmers attending the Global Dairy 500 Conference talk about their industry and the challenges facing it. Topics include the economy, overproduction of milk, silage quality, and people management.
The face and voice of the 
The Chairman of the 
While I was participating in the U.S. Grains Council Corn Mission in Egypt we received another presention on the Cattle Information Center at Cairo University by Dr. Samy Abou-Bakr.
I had the honor and pleasure to participate in a 
The 
Supermarket giant 
The current state of the Chinese dairy industry is described best as being in a period of transition, with small herd owners and managers facing the decision between expanding their operation and going out of business. As low milk prices continue to create a challenge for smaller producers, it is anticipated the trend toward larger operations will be steady, in order to balance the rising costs of doing business. 
What are the 5 things you would do differently in dairy today? That was the question our opening panel on the final day of the Global Dairy 500 Conference had to answer. Amazingly they each seemed to have very similar answers.
The future of milk marketing was the subject of our last panel of the day here at the Global Dairy 500 Conference. The afternoon activities include tours of the Alltech headquarters and a dinner at Kentucky Horse Park.
To provide a global perspective on dairy systems the Global Dairy 500 Conference featured a panel with participants from the USA, New Zealand and South Africa. I spoke with Bryan Beeston, Dairy Business Centre, New Zealand, seated on the right. He’s a dairy farmer involved in a collective type dairy company.
At an international conference like the Global Dairy 500 Conference translators are absolutely necessary. We have many of them here. During a break this morning I spoke with Irina Zablith (right) who is not only a translator but a veterinarian from Brazil. She’s translating into Portugese.
In the theme of global dairy farming we had discussion dinner tables with international people like at my table where we had farmers from the USA, Colombia, Brazil and South Africa.