Has history repeated itself?

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) is a large nationally-based farmer-owned milk marketing and dairy product manufacturing cooperative with headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. Recently, DFA announced that they had reached a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission along with two former leaders of DFA. The monetary penalty was $12 million US Dollars. This settlement didn't generate a large 'news' presence, with an Associated Press news item circulated in some dairy and local publications in dairy-rich regions of the US and with an article in a Kansas City newspaper.

A US Mid-Atlantic regional publication, Lancaster Farming, had a recent front page article about this settlement and the reaction of their dairy community to the settlement. This article describes the essence of the charge as:

"The core of complaints against DFA and the two executives was that they essentially traded against the interests of their own member farmers on the CME, betting on and profiting from declines in prices of dairy commodities traded on the exchange floor."

A little more reading in the article mentions the executives by name and one of those is Gary Hanman, of DFA, who I remember my father mentioning. Please pardon a little bit of history, but I remember my father, Kenny, mentioning Mr. Hanman. My father is a part of this blog's goal.

DFA's history is that it was formed in 1998 by merging four large dairy cooperatives. My father was associated with Mid-American Dairymen (MidAm) which was one of the four cooperatives, and I remember him mentioning political contributions. Another of the four was Associated Milk Producers Inc (AMPI) which gained much noteriety in the 1970's for contributing money to the campaign fund of President Richard Nixon. The government then changed their stand on milk price supports and the price of milk increased substantially.

Still reading? Here's where history may have repeated itself. You can easily look up recent contributions to political campaigns on the Huffington Post website. If you do a search for Gary Hanman, you find that in the last quarter of '07 and the first quarter of '08, Mr. Hanman made contributions of over $4,000 to prominent Republican campaign organizations.

The article in Lancaster Farming states that the "...U.S. Justice Department probe of DFA and other players in the U.S. dairy industry that has dragged on for years and apparently been kept bottled up by Bush administration political operatives at the highest levels at Justice. "

I don't know if they are related or not, and I'm not implying that there is a cause and effect. I just find it ironic that once again, former leaders of dairy industry organizations are making political contributions and that a reporter is once again connecting favorable treatment by government officials with a dairy leader who made contributions to the political party in power at the time.

Can't we learn from our mistakes?

Hope that helps.

DairyScienceMark

Feedstuff's Editor Misses the Boat

Sarah Muirhead is Editor and Publisher of Feedstuffs, a weekly hardcopy and for-fee Internet publication that focuses on the animal agriculture business, especially feeding those animals. An article by Ms. Muirhead was recently published in Farm Futures, a "sister" publication to Feedstuffs. The article is entitled "Higher Costs Unfold as Dairy Tech is Removed", and Ms. Muirhead says the following:

"Options for increasing total milk production for safe, wholesome, nutritious diets are to either (1) increase the number of cows milked, or (2) improve productivity through technology."

Ms. Muirhead says in effect that the recent decline in overall milk production was due in large part to dairy producers not using the bST product, Posilac. Well, some producers have used less Posilac, but your ways to increase milk production misses one key option. That option is the opposite of what is historically done when feed prices get high.

The third option is that dairy farmers can feed more concentrate and milk production will go up. This isn't a new concept. The relationship between feed prices and total milk production is strong and negative. As prices of concentrate feeds rise, and they certainly did that in 2008, dairy farmers don't feed their cows as much. Anybody associated with the industry knew that.

If you don't feed cows as much protein and energy concentrate feeds, like corn grain and soybean meal, then then don't milk as much. Everybody associated with the industry knows that.

Ms. Muirhead, I'm sorry, but with the focus of your publication being feeding animals and with your role as Editor and Publisher you should have not missed this direct cause and effect relationship.

Hope that helps

DairyScienceMark

Clever idea for dairy advisers from Australia

There's times when we observe or hear about clever ideas from other locations, even different continents. I read about one today in the Weekly Times Now published in Australia. Their article describes a service that dairy producers can register to get an e-mail message whenever the combination of heat and humidity gets high enough to limit milk production.

The Cool Cows website is part of the Grains2Milk project in Australia. There's a number of publications written for the Australian conditions, and the part where you can register to get a warning e-mail.

This would be something that any US public or private dairy adviser could put together for the dairy producers is her/his area. The temperature and humidity combination's that limit milk production are well known. An adviser could then create a program by establishing a web-page with links to publications and other resources. A warning e-mail could then be sent to dairy producers when those conditions arise.

Examples of good publications include one from DAIReXNET in eXtension that describes the evaluation and selection of cooling equipment for different locations. The folks from Kansas State University Extension also have some good publications on this issue.

It's cold here in North America at the moment, but there's time for someone to get this program established and promoted before the weather gets hot.

Hope that helps.

DairyScienceMark

Lessons from the Chinese Dairy Scandal

Travelling in Russia, as I am now, has given me the opportunity to reflect on some of the lessons that the US dairy industry might learn from the recent Chinese dairy scandal that I continue to update on in my blog posting. 

Bruce McLaughlan is a columnist in the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch, and he has a business consultancy based in China. He recently wrote:

"Adverts in China give us the image that China's dairy giants control huge green fields full of happy, healthy cows, which troop into gleaming dairies where their milk is efficiently turned into yoghurt, ice cream or formula. The reality is somewhat different. While each of the big-name dairies has its own model farm with a few thousand cows, these account for a tiny proportion of the milk used by these firms."

The US dairy industry has this same kind of image of "happy, healthy cows, which troop in gleaming dairies" that's used in promotion. The California dairy industry uses precisely this kind of false vision in their "Happy California Cows" television ads, most of which can be found on YouTube.

We all know that the cows in California are not managed in this fashion, so when the reality is brought out, as in a PETA video and PR blitz, the industry takes another black eye.

How long does the dairy industry wish to willingly put itself into a postion of accepting black-eyes?

Just a thought, and I hope that helps.

DairyScienceMark

Russian Dairy Products

A wide variety of dairy products are now available in Russia. Most are produced locally, some with major international labels. Photos to follow.

Unusual 'Cow in the News' Story

I know it's not Friday, which is going to be my usual day for a 'funny cow post' in Dairy Adviser's Coffeeshop, but dairy advisers often get asked about the validity of news items. There was a recent news item distributed by UPI that is quoted below:

"Farmer Graham Vallis said by conducting a meditative mooing session with his cows for five minutes before each milking session, he has been able to increase the amount of milk he gets from them, The Sun reported Saturday."

The Sun is a reputable newspaper in the UK, and UPI news items are often used on the local radio stations that dairy producers and advisers listen to.

If you get asked about this, look back on this post and I'll try to update the post with research-based support that I find on the topic. This photo is from the Wisconsin Historical Society and has a interesting story behind it.


A recent Hoard's Dairyman article (November 10, 2005; page 757) by Mary Beth de Ondarza discusses if cows are psychologically comfortable, and this may be the key to the success of the UK farmer's mooing. Hoard's is available on-line, but requires a subscription to access archive articles.

One recent research article on a related topic is at:

Title of Journal:  Applied animal behaviour science.

Vol/Iss/Month:  53/June

Date:  1997

Page(s):  175-182.

Title of article(s):  Effect of music on voluntary approach of dairy

cows to an automatic milking system.

Author(s) of article:  Uetake,-K.; Hurnik,-J.F.; Johnson,-L.





This is from a search of the Dairy-L archives.

If you're not a part of the Dairy-L discussion group, check it out.

Hope that helps.

DairyScienceMark

"The Churning Point"

Today's Washington Post Food Section had an article by Jane Black entitled "The Churning Point." Ms. Black writes:

"Bobby Prigel seems like a poster child for the local-food movement. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, he wants to build a creamery to make organic butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. He wants to sell those products to consumers in nearby Baltimore instead of shipping his milk out of state. He wants to make enough money to pass on the farm to a fifth generation."

This article describes the problems faced by a Maryland dairy producer as he tries to establish a new niche marketing alternative for products from his newly-certified organic dairy farm. This farm is just outside of Baltimore and is surrounded by 'city and suburban-types' who bought land and were a part of the 'white-flight' out of Baltimore. The Prigel's are surrounded by neighbors with influence upon governing systems, and they are organized in the Long Green Valley Conservancy. It pits neighbor against neighbor.

The local county Board of Appeals has yet to rule on the zoning request. The Baltimore Sun has an article on the issue also, and that article was in a recent ChickenFlicker blog post.

Most of the legal argument revolves around whether churning butter, pasteurizing/homogenizing milk and making ice cream or yogurt is an agricultural enterprise. The Prigel family sold their farm's development rights to the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation over a decade ago, so the farm can't be developed. Agricultural enterprises are allowed, however, and as the phrase goes 'therein lies the rub.'

Many people across the US and around the world will face similar issues as urbanization increases. It's just that we're facing them sooner in the urban Mid-Atlantic region. If you're ever faced with giving advice to a farmer, a good resource is New Jersey's "Farmer-to-Farmer Advice for Avoiding Conflicts With Neighbors and Towns."

In the interest of full disclosure, I've known the Prigel family for decades, and have enjoyed meals in the family home. I have not, however, been an adviser to the family on this current project, nor have I visited Bellevale Farm for some years.

Hope that helps

DairyScienceMark