11/16/06 Catlett`s view on dairy growth

Doctor Lowell Catlett says the American dairy industry has a bright future ahead of it. Catlett is a full time professor at New Mexico State who was in Boise for the United Dairymen's annual meeting. CATLETT "70 percent of all milk nationally on average goes to things other than what people think of as drinking milk. Its goes for the cheeses, ice cream, powders and yogurts which have phenomenal growth aspects." Catlett says American awareness of health is a major consideration in food buying habits and that's where dairy has an advantage. CATLETT "Then the demand for almost everything that milk and milk products are related to starts growing expediential." With growing consumer demand Catlett sees the dairy industry continuing to expand in Idaho and throughout the West. CATLETT "We have the technology now to increasingly handle larger units, increasing get higher productivity out of those. We increasing have the capability of the open spaces to have those larger facilities and we're increasing getting new technologies to handle the bad side of confinement agriculture which is what do you do with the waste, what do you do with the smell?" Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott