10/29/08 Another CWT dairy herd buyout round

Washington Ag October 29, 2008 Farm level milk prices are dropping and that is prompting Cooperatives Working Together, CWT, to conduct another dairy herd retirement round, its second this year. Three Washington dairy herds were retired in the round held in June. Chris Galen with the National Milk Producers Federation says this current round is underway. Galen: "The bidding process is now open. The pool is open and anyone who wants to plunge in who is a member of CWT, or whose coop is a dues paying member as of 2008, is able to send in a bid. The window of opportunity is another four weeks, you have until November 24th to submit bids." The program has set no target as to how many cows or pounds of milk that will be removed to trim overall national milk production and strengthen prices going into 2009. This is the sixth herd retirement round since CWT began operations in the summer of 2003. As it did earlier this year, this round offers bidding producers the option of including all their bred heifers, for a flat fee of 12-hundred-25 dollars per animal, but producers must offer all of their bred heifers at that price. I'm Bob Hoff.