06/11/08 CWT number five

The Cooperatives Working Together sees this as another tough year and has issued another dairy herd retirement call. Chris Galen of the National Milk Producers Federation says dairy farmers are getting prices above historic averages but they are also paying record high input costs. GALEN "Contributing to put a lot of pressure on dairy farmers margins. In fact it was announced last week that milk-price-feed ratio is at an all time low. CWT decided that this was the right time to go out there and commence its next herd retirement." Galen says there are a couple of firsts in this herd retirement, the fifth since CWT started in the summer of 2003. Regional safeguards have been removed. This year there is a bred heifer option. GALEN "Where producers will have the option to sell us their bred heifers in addition to their milking herds. You just can't sell off heifers. You have to include the bred heifers as part of you're overall bid and we're not going to accept bred heifers if we don't accept the overall bid for the milking herd." Galen says bids are now being accepted from CWT members through June 30th. The bids will be reviewed in early July with field auditors heading to each accepted farm mid-month to begin the cow removal process. Galen says there is no numerical target in terms of pounds of milk, cows or farms for this herd retirement Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott