At National Farmers Organization’s annual convention in Sioux Falls, S.D., Dairy Marketing Division Director Bradley Rach outlined a vision “to strengthen the dairy farmer’s position when it comes time to put a price on milk.”

The intent of National Farmers would be to partner with multiple players in today’s milk marketing to maximize prices and market leverage. “My goal, and yours, too, I hope, is to work even more closely with other dairy cooperatives as time goes on….” Rach emphasized.

So, for the benefit of dairy producers and all of their marketers - cooperatives and National Farmers included - Rach suggested a two-tier pricing system.

Source: National Farmers Organization/ News Release, Jan. 11, 2006
Source URL: http://www.nfo.org/PressReleases/National%20Farmers%20proposes%20Nine-Million%20Cow%20Dairy%20marketing%20agency-in-common.htm

Iowa lawmakers will tackle rules for large-scale farms and a plan to clean up the state’s waters.

Jeff Vonk, director of Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said the agency’s first priority will be to seek a larger budget. Among the items he said the department lacks are enough staff members to handle the growth in permits for new farms.

But even if the rules change, only a few sites would be affected each year, Vonk said.

Source: Agri News/ Associated Press, Jan. 5, 2006
Source URL: http://webstar.agrinews.com/agrinews/285105781043446.bsp

U.S. government officials have laid out what must be done to reach an agreement on a new World Trade Organization deal: the European Union must improve its offer by softening its stance on market access for agricultural imports.

WTO negotiations ended last month with an agreement by negotiators to try to reach an outline of a deal by May 1.

Source: Engineering News, Jan. 11, 2006
Source URL: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/?show=79267

Attorney General Tom Miller filed a lawsuit today alleging repeated water pollution and manure-handling violations by Plymouth Dairy Farms Inc., a 2850-head dairy cattle operation located south of Le Mars in northwest Iowa.

The lawsuit alleges that cattle manure escaped from the dairy's settling basins in September and October 2004 and ultimately discharged into a nearby unnamed tributary of Plymouth Creek.

Source: Office of Iowa Attorney General/ News Release, Jan. 10, 2006
Source URL: http://www.iowaattorneygeneral.org/latest_news/releases/jan_2006/Plymouth_Dairy.html

Cyclical exposures of farm profit to the economic environment are a fact of life for farmers. By utilising the farmer terms of trade as a net profit margin metric, we show how wavelet analysis can be used to decompose the cycle and trend, analyse causal influences, and detect structural breaks. With the NZ dairy industry as case study, the wavelet decomposition reveals that shorter cycles are almost wholly the result of commodity prices. Longer cycles are produced by the interaction of commodity prices with the exchange rate, but with a strong natural buffering element. The buffer was upset following the Asian crisis of 1997-8, but may have restored itself since. A favourable long-term trend has appeared from the mid nineties onwards. Implications for risk management are briefly examined.

Source: Victoria University of Wellington/ News Release, Jan. 11, 2006
Source URL: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/home/about_victoria/news_article.asp?ArticleID=1042149725

Heat load impairs the feed intake and milk yield of dairy cows: The higher their milk yield and energy expenditure (EE), the larger the expected effect. Our objective was to examine the efficacy of feeding such cows at night, which avoiding their access to feed for 5 1/2 h during the hot hours of the day, to reduce the heat load upon them in a hot climate.

The energy expenditure of NFT cows was lower than that of DFT cows, and their efficiency of energy utilization for milk production was higher.

Source: Night feeding for high-yielding dairy cows in hot weather: effects on intake, milk yield and energy expenditure. Livestock Production Science 92 (3): 207-219, 2005. Aharoni, Y.; Brosh, A.; Harari, Y.

The prevalence of bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) in dairy herds in Hokkaido, Japan, was estimated by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using bulk tank milk samples.

These results suggested that bulk tank milk test was available method for the detection of PI animals in dairy herds, and the existence of PI non-lactating cows in herd correlated with the incidence of diseases of the diarrhea or respiratory disorders.

Source: Relationship of bovine viral diarrhea virus persistent infection to incidence,of diseases on dairy farms based on bulk tank milk test by RT-PCR. Veterinary Microbiology 106 (2-Jan): 41-47, 2005. Kozasa, T.; Tajima, M.; Yasutomi, I.; Sano, K.; et al.

Microbiologist Julia Ridpath of ARS’s National Animal Disease Center says that, as they exist today, vaccine and voluntary control programs aimed at eradicating bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) in the United States are not working.

“Decades of trying have shown that vaccination as a stand-alone solution is not the answer,” says Ridpath, of the Ames, Iowa-based center’s Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock Research Unit. “Available vaccines don’t protect animals for their entire lives, leaving windows of vulnerability in the face of constant exposure.”

Source: USDA-ARS/ Agricultural Research/ Luis Pons, January 2006
Source URL: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan06/bovine0106.htm

Windbreaks should be an integral part of the farm and acreage landscape. Farmstead windbreaks and field shelterbelts have positive effects on several environmental conditions including reductions in wind erosion, reducing chill factors during the winter months, reduction in drying of plants during the summer, improved heat budgets for houses and buildings, improved feed conversion of feedlot animals, improved wildlife habitat and property value enhancement through beautification.

Source: Iowa State University/ Paul Wray, Jan. 9, 2006
Source URL: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/2006/jan/070202.htm

Great Britain’s cattle producers will work to control and eradicate bovine viral diarrhea (BVD). The first stage involves the establishment of two working groups to outline a strategy and develop a communications plan.

Britain’s cattle industry loses about ₤60 million ($105.89 million US) per year to BVD, and unlike other European Union member states, Britain has no policy to control the disease.

British Cattle Veterinary Association representatives, researchers and cattle sector representatives agree that adequate knowledge and the tools exist to significantly reduce BVD. In addition, they believe it’s possible BVD could be eradicated in the long term.

Source: Stackyard, Jan. 6, 2006
Source URL: http://www.stackyard.com/news/2006/01/cattle/02_bovine_viral_diarrhoea.html