A 10th dairy herd retirement round
Washington Ag Today June 2, 2010 Cooperatives Working Together has announced it is conducting another dairy herd buyout, its tenth. National Milk Producers Federation spokesperson Chris Galen says the decision comes after reviewing a number of economic benchmarks, including cull rates and cull cow prices. Galen: “Given where milk prices are, where the futures market says milk prices will be for the rest of the year we felt that now would be a good time for CWT to step in and nudge some additional cows towards hamburger heaven. Part of the reason is that cull cow prices are extraordinarily high, at least in most places around the country. So farmers will get the additional boost from the beef value of their animals and so therefore CWT can more cost effectively, we hope, remove a large number of animals this summer.” Galen says CWT has no set target for the volume of milk or number of cows to be removed in this herd retirement. CWT will consider bids up to but not exceeding $3.75 per hundredweight. There is not a bred heifer option this time and 90 percent of the payment will be upfront but the other ten percent will be paid in 12 months. The bid deadline is June 25th. The USDA’s Dairy Industry Advisory Committee is holding its second meeting tomorrow and Friday in Washington D.C. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss farm milk price volatility and dairy farmer profitability, review current USDA programs and federal dairy policy and hear proposals from dairy industry groups. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net
