FYI on Dairy

Top trade officials from the United States and European Union said today they were pleased with a final ruling from the WTO, which went against Chinese trade restraints on raw materials. The WTO’s Appellate Body said in Geneva that China needs to bring its restraints on exports of the materials into conformity with international trade agreement. The materials in question are used in the chemical and steel industries.

Researchers studying a potentially deadlier, airborne version of the bird flu virus have voluntarily suspended their studies for 60 days because of concerns it could be used as a devastating form of bioterrorism, according to a letter published in the journals Nature and Science on Friday.

The UK's biggest fresh milk supplier, Robert Wiseman Dairies, has said it is in talks to be bought out by German-owned yoghurt maker Muller Dairy. Wiseman, which operates seven dairies across the UK and counts the The Co-operative Group, Sainsbury's and Tesco among its customers, has seen its share price rise nearly a third amid takeover speculation. The Glasgow-based company confirmed it was in talks for a cash offer with Muller Dairy UK, which is owned by German-based parent group Theo Muller, but it said there was no certainty of a bid.

Milk consumption has been on a steady decline. Today, the average person in the United States drinks 9 fewer gallons of milk on an annual basis than he or she did in the early 1970s. Despite the trend, producers, restaurants and marketers have found a way to make milk more appealing, and that is through flavored milk — traditional chocolate and some not-so-traditional flavors like coffee, orange and root beer.

Flooding from Tropical Storm Irene swept away some bales of hay Doug Turner grew to feed his dairy cows and ripped open others, contaminating them with muddy water. When the water receded, he had to mow down a third of his corn, which had turned brown and moldy.

For the past decade, cattle ranchers and meat packers watched with despair as America's beef consumption steadily declined, ceding ground to leaner meats as well as vegetarian trends among the health-conscious. Most recently, high unemployment in the world's wealthiest nation had cash-strapped Americans avoiding restaurants where beef is a common entree and had them switching to lower cost non-meat dishes at home.

In a year of record agricultural earnings in the U.S., Steve Ruh spent a chunk of his income to build what’s become an increasingly common sight at farms across the Midwest -- grain storage bins. The Illinois corn grower started with 250,000 bushels (2 million gallons) of storage capacity in 2009 and added 100,000 this year to avoid wasting precious harvest time in line at grain elevators. He can now hold crops in gluts, hoping to sell at higher prices when grain is scarcer, and is storing half the 400,000-bushel corn crop this season at his farm in Sugar Grove.

Over the past two years, the Department of Agriculture's monthly forecasts of how much farmers will harvest have been off the mark to a greater degree than any other two consecutive years in the last 15, according to a Journal analysis of government data. This year's early-season forecasts also appear to have been way off.

For Canada, the cost of either meeting its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, or failing to do so, was too much to bear. On Monday, the country became the first signatory of the landmark climate treaty to back out of the deal, citing the huge potential cost of legally binding commitments.

While the long-term bull run in agri commodities remains, we expect prices across the agri complex to ease from their record highs, continuing the downward trajectory since mid-2011,says Luke Chandler, Director of Agri Commodity Markets Research. Prices need to stay at these higher levels through 2012 to encourage farmers to continue expanding production and keep pace with demand growth, and to allow global inventories to rebuild.

Dozens of agriculture groups are pressing the Department of Labor for changes to what they believe are overreaching proposals to on-farm child labor regulations. The National Pork Producers Council, National Farmers Union, American Sheep Industry Association and National Turkey Federation last week submitted comments on the U.S. Department of Labor’s proposed on-farm child labor regulations.

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee voted to subpoena Jon S. Corzine, former chairman and chief executive officer of MF Global Holdings Ltd., for a Dec. 8 hearing on the collapse of the New York-based brokerage.

This week, the conclave of global warming's cardinals are meeting in Durban, South Africa, for their 17th conference in as many years. The idea is to come up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire next year, and to require rich countries to pony up $100 billion a year to help poor countries cope with the alleged effects of climate change. This is said to be essential because in 2017 global warming becomes "catastrophic and irreversible," according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency. Yet a funny thing happened on the way to the climate apocalypse. Namely, the financial apocalypse.

Forced to cut its budget, the Agriculture Department has decided to eliminate dozens of reports, including the annual goat census (current population: three million), and the number of catfish on the nation’s fish farms (177 million, not counting the small fry).

With hay prices rising across the country, the ability to judge hay quality is an increasingly critical skill -- both for buyers and producers. Hay prices, though varying by region, quality and package, are sharply higher this fall compared to a year ago, Agriculture.com sources reported this week. Prices have as much as doubled in some areas, due to acreage shifts and a poor growing season.

Producers who want to buy Non-Insurable Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) coverage on native and improved grazing and forage/hay land have until Dec. 1 to do so. NAP provides financial assistance to producers of non-insurable crops when low yields or grazing losses, loss of inventory or prevented planting occur due to normal disasters, says USDA Texas Farm Service Agency (FSA) Acting Executive Director James Douglass.

Livestock producers need to diligently manage livestock nutrition needs this fall and winter because of the low-quality forage available, says Ohio State University Extension specialist Rory Lewandowski. “We have pretty good forage quantity, but what is going to hurt us is the quality,” says Lewandowski, an educator with the university’s Extension Beef Team. “Most of southeastern Ohio is going to be in that situation because we had decent amounts of hay in terms of tonnage, but the quality, especially of that first cutting, is going to present a problem.”

Giles County (TN) USDA Farm Service Agency County Executive Director Mike Mayfield reminds eligible ranchers and livestock producers who had livestock losses or grazing losses during the 2011 crop year that the deadline for applying for benefits under the Livestock Forage Disaster Program and the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees and Farm-Raised Fish Program is January 30th of next year.

In preparing for winter feed needs for the cow herd, beef producers need to consider cow nutrient needs; pros and cons of different feeding methods; and possible alternative (and cheaper) feeds to reduce costs to the cow/calf enterprise. By knowing what you have for feed in terms of quantity and quality tells you what you may need to purchase for additional feed for the winter-feeding. Taking inventory on quantity is easier than knowing quality, however a forage analysis is essential in determining winter-feed needs and making an informed purchase decision.