Kraft Foods is like a calf that cannot wait to be on its own and away from its mother. The company wants to make a break with its parent, Altria Group, which also owns tobacco companies.

The “tobacco taint” kept Kraft out of World Health Organization meetings with the food industry last year to discuss worldwide obesity; WHO refuses to deal with tobacco companies.

Source: New York Times/ Melanie Warner, Aug. 30, 2006
Source URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/business/30place.html?th&emc=th

The U. S. Department of Agriculture today announced that it will reconvene a national public hearing to consider proposals seeking to amend the Class III and Class IV milk price formula manufacturing allowances applicable to all federal milk marketing orders. The hearing will begin at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 14 at the Holiday Inn Select, 15471 Royalton Road, Strongsville, Ohio 44136.

The public hearing originally was held Jan. 24-27 in Alexandria, Va. The purpose of reconvening this proceeding is to assure that any changes to manufacturing allowance factors used in federal order Class III and Class IV product price formulas are appropriate and reflective of manufacturing costs. Specifically, this proceeding is being reconvened to take into evidence only data on plant manufacturing costs compiled by Cornell University and other pertinent data that would be publicly available.

Source: USDA/ AMS, Sept. 1, 2006
Source URL: http://www.ams.usda.gov/news/175-06.htm

Following are headlines from news articles highlighted this past week:

• Johanns Wants to Slash Ag Subsidies
• Study: Evidence of How, Where Proteins Fold
• Voluntary MO Premises Registration may End
• Greenland Plans More Dairy, Ag as Global Warming Heats Up

Click to read more of these and other news stories.

There is no doubt that Iowa is in the midst of a corn-ethanol boom -- with 27 plants currently processing corn, mostly for ethanol, and 24 either under construction, planned, or proposed.

But while ethanol will continue to be good for the Iowa economy, some projections being reported by farm state politicians and industry advocates -- like one in an essay this year by former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle that the current U.S. production of 3.1 billion gallons of ethanol created 200,000 jobs -- look too good to be true. They are according to an Iowa State University economist's recent study.

Source: Iowa State University/ News Release, Sept. 1, 2006
Source URL: http://www.iastate.edu/%7enscentral/news/2006/sep/ethanolecon.shtml

This month the market is clearly focused on the market effects of July heat stress on California milk production. The USDA milk production report indicated that estimated U.S. milk production actually rose 1.5 percent in July on a daily average basis. The market likely was expecting a more negative report. The more detailed numbers revealed that U.S. milk per cow was 1,664 pounds in July, up 8 pounds above a year ago. It was depressed, but not below last year’s figure. But the big surprise was in cow numbers. They fell 13,000 head to 9.134 million in July. Twelve thousand deaths alone came from California.

So where does the milk supply go from here? We are expecting that milk yield per cow will rebound slightly in the fall months. Cooler weather has replaced heat and humidity in the last weeks of August. But cow numbers will likely continued to decline slightly in the months ahead. Last month we were forecasting that cow numbers would begin to decline in September due to consistently low economic returns. That tend will be accelerated due to the cow deaths in California. On the other hand, it is also possible for cow numbers to resume an upward trend in August and possibly September before declining due to low economic returns.

Source: Penn State University/ Ken Bailey, August 2006
Source URL: http://dairyoutlook.aers.psu.edu/reports/Pub2006/DairyOutlookAug06.pdf

Following are some of the headlines from market news and analysis highlighted this week:

• FAPRI Fuel, Fertilizer Outlook: Short-Term Hurt 
• Is Soybean Crop as Good as it Looks?
• Economics of Spring vs. Winter Wheat
• Fewer Presents Under the Farm Tree this Christmas
• UK: Milk Production Continues Growing

Click to read these and more market stories.

Diarrhea in neonatal calves is still considered a serious clinical problem, especially in large dairy herds. The aim of this study was to investigate etiological agents responsible for this disease in large dairy herds in Poland.

Results of the study confirmed that proper management and sanitary conditions in keeping the animals are very important in the prophylactics of diarrhea in neonatal calves.

Source: Epidemiology of neonatal calf diarrhea in large dairy herds. Medycyna Weterynaryjna 62 (6): 665-668, 2006. Kaba, J.; Kita, J.; Piwowarczyk, A.; Pawinski, J.; et al.

The objective was to utilize data from modern US dairy cattle to determine the effect of days dry on fat and protein yield, fat and protein percentages, days open, and somatic cell score in the subsequent lactation.

Herds with mastitis problems should be cautious in shortening days dry because short dry periods led to higher cell scores in the subsequent lactation compared with 60-d dry.

Source: Effects of length of dry period on yields of milk fat and protein, fertility and milk somatic cell score in the subsequent lactation of dairy cows. Journal of Dairy Research 73 (2): 154-162, 2006. Kuhn, M.T.; Hutchison, J.L.; Norman, H.D.

As wet corn distillers grain continues to be available and economical as a source of dairy feed in Illinois, producers may want to consider some guidelines for using it in conjunction with corn stalks, said a University of Illinois Extension dairy specialist.

"Each feed is a complement to the other in terms of balancing nutrients," said Mike Hutjens. "For example, distillers grains are high in protein, fat, energy content, and phosphorous. Corn stalks are high in fiber and low in phosphorous and crude protein."

Source: University of Illinois/ News Release, Aug. 31, 2006
Source URL: http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/news/stories/news3743.html

A single-factor cross-over design was used to investigate the effect of pre-milking teat brushing on milk processing time in an AMS operating in an extensive grazing farming system.

The importance of these potential time savings is discussed in relation to automatic milking in farming systems that aim for a lower per cow milking frequency and high ratio of cows to AMS.

Source: The effect of pre-milking teat-brushing on milk processing time in an automated milking system. Journal of Dairy Research 73 (2): 187-192, 2006. Jago, J.G.; Davis, K.L.; Copeman, P.J.; Woolford, M.M.