TheDairySite Newsletter - 15 May 2009

Friday 15th May 2009

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Welcome to this week's newsletter

Editorial: CWT Takes Bold Measures to Realign Supply and Demand

This week witnessed the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) announce the largest single herd retirement carried out its six year history. The US cooperative accepted 388 bids representing 102,898 cows and 2 billion pounds of milk production capacity in the first of a series of herd retirements planned over the next twelve months. The CWT is exempt from collusion laws and can work together to reduce cow numbers and, consequently, milk supplies.

â€œThe high percentage of bids CWT selected this time around is an indication that producers understood that CWT would only be able to accept reasonable bids per hundred pounds of milk in order to adjust the nationâ€™s dairy herd and better align supply and demand,â€ said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), which administers CWT. According to a CME report released 13 May: "dairy producers have been holding cows in anticipation of the CWT programme as dairy cow slaughter has been lower than last year in 3 of the past 4 weeks in spite of continued heavy losses on milk production."

This week also witnessed the closure of Milk Link's Kirkcudbright site in Scotland. 121 jobs are likely to be lost, dealing a significant blow to the Scottish dairy industry. According to National Farmers' Union Scotland, the plant takes around three per cent of all the milk produced in Scotland each year.

Adam Anson

This Week's Feature Articles

We have 5 new features this week:

The Life and Death of BSE
Fifteen years ago Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was causing havoc in the EU. This fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle seemed both incomprehensible and unstoppable, but today many countries are looking to eradicate it once and for all, writes Adam Anson, TheCattleSite.

Saving Electricity in the Dairy
Milk harvesting accounts for almost half of the electricity used in dairies, but fine-tuning an operation offers ways to trim energy costs, a South Dakota State University specialist said.

UK Organic Market Report 2009
The Soil Association has released their organic market report for 2009, which shows promising indications for the UK beef and dairy sectors.

World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates - May 2009
Total U.S. meat production for 2010 is projected to be fractionally above 2009 as declines in red meat production are more than offset by increases in poultry. Beef production declines on tighter supplies of cattle, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, produced by the USDA's World Agricultural Outlook Board.

March Milk Production Down 0.2 Per Cent
March 2009 23 major dairy states milk production dropped 0.2 per cent. Production per cow was down 6 pounds from one year ago, says this Iowa State University, Iowa Farm Outlook report.