Friday, January 30, 2009

Drug deal spiced up NMC meeting

More than 300 people attended the NMC (National Mastitis Council) annual meeting this week at Charlotte, N.C. Each year, the meeting attracts a wide variety of people from across the dairy industry. About 30 percent of those attending were from outside of the U.S. Participants include veterinarians, dairy plant and co-op milk quality staffs, extension personnel, dairy producers, researchers, government officials, and people who work in the pharmaceutical industry.
It was an interesting week for those in the animal health business, and the hallway talk was intense. On the first day of meeting, it was announced that Pfizer, Inc., planned to purchase Wyeth for a reported $68 billion . . . that's "billion" with a "b". Of course, Pfizer has a well-known animal health division, and Wyeth's holdings include Fort Dodge Animal Health. The final acquisition may take months because of various regulatory approvals and financial arrangements. However, those months will be filled with speculation about the future of the people employed in those animal health divisions and the products offered.
Pfizer and Fort Dodge have six of the seven top lactating-cow mastitis treatments and six of the seven top dry cow treatments.
The Federal Trade Commission likely won't let a single company have two similar, competing products, so there probably will be changes ahead in what drug companies offer what mastitis treatments and pharmaceuticals. The two firms also have competing vaccines and worming products.
As big as the animal health industry is, it pales in comparison to the human drug business of Pfizer, Wyeth and others. One industry representative put this in perspective. The sales of drugs to lower cholesterol levels total somewhere around $27 billion a year. Sales of all animal health products, including companion animals, are in the range of $16 billion.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Teaming up to support Action for Healthy Kids

Dairy industry sponsors of the Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) program proudly present a check from Hoard's Dairyman during the 2008 World Dairy Expo. Hoard's raises money for AFHK through advertising from dairy industry sponsors and then matches their contributions. Dairy producers, through their investment in the National Dairy Council (NDC), the nutrition research and education arm of the dairy check-off, are working to introduce kids to the benefits and joys of exercise and nutritious foods, including dairy. By emphasizing the need for better nutrition and physical activity in our nation's schools, dairy producers are being part of the effort to fight childhood obesity and help America's youth reach their full potential.


Included in the photo from left to right are (front row) Paula Meabon, dairy producer: Erie County, Pennsylvania, vice chair of the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board; Iris Neale, Fort Dodge Animal Health; Gary Vorpahl, Hoard's Dairyman; Brian Sturgeon, ImmuCell; Terri Smith, Select Sires, (back row) Taylor W. Weisensel, Ag-Bag Products; Jack Kolo, The Coburn Company; Brad Zumbach, Novartis Animal Health; Ben Church, Pfizer Animal Health.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Planters plant seed of economic hope


Job losses are making national, state, and local headlines on a daily basis. Not all is doom and gloom on the job front, however. A recent tour of the John Deere Seeding Division plant in Moline, Ill., revealed business is still brisk. At that plant, located in the heart of John Deere operations, some 700 employees are working about ten hours a day, six days a week to meet planter demand. The added plus for the company, those planters are all sold to farmers, so they must be assembled before the spring planting season. Planters range from those destined to plant cotton, corn, soybeans, and even sugar beets. Planter size varies greatly, as well . . . from 4-row planters all the way up to those with 32 rows.

For many farm equipment manufacturers, business is still bustling as companies work to fill last years orders following a few years of extremely favorable crop prices. However, reports indicate that future sales are uncertain due to recent fluctuations in crop prices and concerns about the overall economy.

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Genomic evaluations trumped a few additional daughters

January was a quiet sire evaluation just as it’s always been for most Holstein and Jersey proven bulls that had a majority of their first-crop daughters past the first lactation. For this group of bulls, representing about 80 percent of the active A.I. population, the sire summaries found on pages 101 to 104 of the February 10 issue are essentially the August 2008 sire proofs along with new genomic information. Put another way, for each domestic bull or cow, either the August lactations plus genomic information or the new lactations were used, whichever had the higher reliability.

The remaining 20 percent of bulls that had changes in their traditional proofs fell into two groups, notes Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory (AIPL) scientists who work on genetic evaluations.

• Younger progeny test bulls with a substantial number of daughters providing first-lactation production and health trait information. These newcomers did not have genomic information added to their January genetic evaluations because some computer programs needed to combine the data were not ready by mid-December.

• Bulls with foreign daughters, in which case the Interbull multitrait, across-country evaluation became official. These bulls did not have genomic data added to their proofs.

For future genetic evaluations, AIPL plans to include all new phenotypic information in genomic calculations.

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Friday, January 23, 2009

Hoard Farm featured on Wisconsin Dairy News

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Manure Du Jour at Lunch

Now manure is a lunch topic. Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agriculture and Cooperative Extension have teamed up for Manure Du Jour, a Wednesday noon-hour webinar discussing animal agriculture and its impact on the environment. The 14-week series covers topics from the basics of issues at hand to in-depth looks at water quality impacts from all areas of your farm. The series kicked off last week with “Overview of Animal Ag Issues – Air & Water Quality.” This week, we listened to “Water Quality-Nutrition.” Sarah Dinh, PSU dairy and environment specialist shared why how we feed our cows can impact our land and water. Sarah pointed out Pennsylvania’s new feed management program which closely monitors nutrient inputs and outputs on farms in order to minimize feed costs and reduce nutrient importation. Jana Malot, a Conservationalist from NRCS also shared her experience and insight on grazing’s impact on water quality. The weekly webinars are posted online after each week; so don’t worry if you can’t make it over the noon-hour. Next week, the menu features water quality considerations from barnyard and exercise lots. Bon appetite!











Monday, January 19, 2009

Hoard's talks to National Public Radio

Today's dire situation in the dairy industry is a result of a "perfect storm" of circumstances. That's the message the Hoard's Dairyman staff gave NPR reporter John Burnett.
On average, dairy farm families across the nation are experiencing a 50 percent drop in income from roughly $20 per hundredweight or $1.72 a gallon down to $10 per hundredweight or 86 cents a gallon. The low prices have been caused by growing dairy product inventories in the U.S. and around the world. China is importing significantly fewer dairy products in the wake of that nation's melamine scandal. Dairy product importers around the globe can't get credit to import products.
New Zealand, which exports 90 percent of its dairy products, is having trouble finding enough warehouse space for surplus product. Some of the New Zealand surplus is finding its way to the U.S. Recent butterfat imports here are the highest in four years. The European Union just announced that it, again, is going to subsidize exports of dairy products, which will put further pressure on world prices.
Dairy product use in the U.S. is down as people are eating out less and choosing lower cost items (with less cheese) when they do eat out. Pizza makers are cutting back on the amount of cheese they use.
Dairy farmers' biggest costs, Hoard's pointed out, are feed and labor. But there isn't a lot of "wiggle room" on those expenses. Regardless of the price received for milk, cows still must be well fed and well cared for every day.

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Friday, January 16, 2009

There is no place to hide financially

As Hoard's Dairyman editors, we have the opportunity to provide leadership to various dairy-related organizations. This week, one such organization held a conference call to discuss the best places to invest money. It is the same question everyone is asking given the current economic climate.

Market investments have been tracked in the U.S. since 1825. During that time, only two years have faired more poorly than 2008's performance . . . 1931 and 1937. Both of those years were during the Great Depression.

There were only two basic places to invest last year where people didn't lose wealth — cash and CDs. Everything else was a loser. Today’s historic low interest rates are no accident. We have reached the point where the government is basically telling people, "Pull your money out of the bank and invest it in something because we want money to move and get the economy flowing."

These historically low interest rates are great news for borrowers. One person on the conference call reported locking in a 15-year mortgage at 4.375 percent last Friday. Those were previously unheard-of rates.

One major mortgage house told us that the wait on mortgage phone lines was 1-1/2 hours. That's the good news. The bad news is 80 percent of the people on the line were interested in refinancing, while only 20 percent were new home loans. At least it is a start. Many market analysts predict the economy will continue to spiral down until home prices stabilize and the market excess is sold off. Unfortunately, it may be 2010 before we reach that point, analysts predict.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Farm tractor sales down nearly 10% for the year

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) releases monthly flash reports detailing retail sales for farm tractors and self-propelled combines. They use data from most, but not all, manufacturers from each category. While their report does not specifically link purchases to dairy farms, it’s not hard to look at this graph and notice a trend for 2008 (see graph from AEM below). According to retail sales trends the last five years, peak sales occur in spring during planting and see their year low in November after harvest. Then, year-end buying picks up during the month of December to end the year a little higher.


While 2008 did follow this traditional pattern; its sales were down throughout the year and ended much lower in December. Even though farms reported record profits in 2007, a decrease in sales by 20% in the month of November is something easily noticed. The biggest loser in this category were the <40 HP tractors down 26.3%. Year-to-date sales posted a 10% decline for all farm tractors.

Those year-to-date totals did include a few gainers however. Sales of 4WD farm tractors actually increased by 5.8% in December and by 21% for the year. Yet their tiny volume compared to other tractors did little for monthly and yearly averages. Self-propelled combines gained too. Year-to-date, self-propelled combine sales increased 3.5% in December and 19.1% for the year.

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Monday, January 12, 2009

Heavy snow collapses free stall barn


December ushered in record snowfalls throughout the Upper Midwest. These extreme snow events put pressure on many buildings. On a Manitowoc County farm west of Reedsville, Wis., the pressure was so great that a 70-stall free stall barn eventually collapsed.

The free stall barn was attached to an existing, traditional two-story dairy barn with a tin roof. As temperatures rose, the snow began sliding off the two-story building which stood north and south and fell onto the attached free stall barn running east and west. Initially, the lower standing free stall barn was able to hold the weight, reported the dairy farm owners. However, the building soon began to creak and then the entire structure collapsed. Thankfully, most of the dairy animals were outside of the building eating at the outdoor drive-by feeding area. Unfortunately, some animals were caught under the collapsed building.

The farm family, along with a few friends and neighbors began cutting away the tin roof to free the remaining animals. Cutting the tin was a difficult, time-consuming job. One friend who also happened to be a local volunteer fire fighter urged the family to call the fire department and enlist further help. Firemen came with metal cutting equipment and quickly freed most of the remaining Holsteins. When rescuers got off the roof, they heard a faint mooing noise and realized one more animal was still trapped. When they opened up that roof section, they discovered her head was pinned against the free stall divider. She was freed and is doing fine. While that animal survived, two herdmates lost their life in the collapse. Another had to be put down because she suffered a broken leg as the building fell to the ground.

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Thursday, January 8, 2009

Dairy farming ranks near bottom in career poll

It's official, at least in the eyes of the Wall Street Journal writers, that dairy farming isn't much fun. In the January 5 issue of the New York-based business paper, dairy farming ranked 199 out of 200 professions. The only job below it was lumberjack. We think many in the dairy industry would beg to differ even with extremely low milk prices on the horizon.

Researchers from CareerCast.com who conducted the survey ranked jobs based on five criteria — environment, income, employment outlook, physical demands, and stress. We agree that these are important job criteria. But we do question weighting in some of the categories. With five of the top eleven jobs involved in some way with the field of math (1.) mathematician; (2.) actuary; (3.) statistician; (10.), accountant; and (11.), economist, we wonder if the survey criteria was tilted to people with the same perspective and job preferences.

Researchers considered indoor work environments more favorable because they are "free of toxic fumes and noise." Jobs that didn't require heavy lifting, crawling, or crouching were preferred over more physically demanding professions. The last time we checked there was an epidemic caused by too many people who do not do enough physical activity, and so maybe a little physical activity isn't all that bad.

Job choice is a matter of personal perspective. Fortunately, there is great variation in careers. Some people like working outdoors in the fresh air. Others like working with animals, caring for the land, don't mind physical activity, and like working with family. Those options and many other positive attributes make dairy farming an enjoyable and noble career.

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Monday, January 5, 2009

Junior breed groups inspire youth


Our average reader now milks 161 cows, up nearly 25 percent from a decade ago. Despite growing herd sizes, it takes the same time-tested recipe to inspire a young person to get excited and pursue a career in the dairy industry. Just like generations before, the recipe includes an encouraging spark to ignite a young person's curiosity . . . be it a project calf, dairy bowl contest, a trip, or other contest. Providing the spark for all these events is the dedicated dairy leader. Those dedicated leaders were out in full force encouraging the next dairy generation at the annual Wisconsin Junior Holstein Convention held in Middleton, Wis.

From January 2 to 4, 340 juniors and 153 adults converged for a weekend packed with dairy skill competitions. In all, 29 Junior and 25 Senior four-person dairy bowl teams representing 216 juniors tested their dairy knowledge as some 50 volunteers partnered to put on the competitions. Youngsters had a variety of reasons to compete, ranging from spending time with like-minded dairy friends, bolstering their dairy IQ, and ultimately competing for the right to represent their state at the upcoming National Holstein Convention. In addition to the dairy bowl competition, 62 youth competed in the Dairy Jeopardy contest modeled after the popular TV version. Others competed in speaking, photography, advertising, and a variety of record-book contests. Juniors also were able to attend cattle photography (shown above) and advertising workshops (shown below) lead by personnel from Agri-Graphics and the Cattle Connection.

The capstone for the weekend activities took place Saturday night as some 32 Green County hosts led by Lisa Behnke and Trish Hoesley put the finishing touches on the banquet for over 425 Holstein enthusiasts. The evening celebrated all that was good about our industry. Young people were honored for outstanding project work. There was $10,000 in scholarships awarded to support future studies. And adult leaders drew internal satisfaction as they witnessed the countless smiles from young people who are blossoming into future dairy leaders.

To all those who inspire our next generation, thank you; keep up the great work.

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