August 2006

Air quality rules for dairy “have been adopted in Idaho, making it the first state to have a specific rule that regulates ammonia emissions from dairy farms,” reports the “Hoard’s has heard” column in Hoards’ Dairyman (Aug. 25, ’06). “According to an AP report, the rule requires large dairies and other confined animal feeding operations to get air quality permits if they emit more than 100 tons of ammonia a year.”

About Your Web Site (Turf, Aug. ’06). Author Bob Labbance writes, “I can’t tell you how many Web sites fail to provide a separate method of contact, such as a phone number, location or address. . . . Another fault is that the majority of sites are updated far too infrequently. Companies make a huge splash with their Web site and then abandon it for years, never adding fresh material or changing existing data in a timely fashion. . . . A final failing is not providing solid customer service from the site. If things don’t work right, there should be someone in your company who is easily reached to troubleshoot and problem solve. All computers are different; all ISPs have their own little foibles, and expecting that everyone will have the same positive experience visiting your site is naïve.”

Time Management Equals More Profit (Landscape Construction Management, Aug. ’06). “Typically, our time management style is reactive, fireman mentality, versus being proactive. What some of us have here is a failure to organize and manage our time to improve profits.” Author Bill Phagan recommends, “First, determine what your time is worth every hour of the working day and write it down where you can see it. . . . Maybe that figure was $25 per hour, or $50, $75, $100 or more; a good start to realizing your value to your business. . . . Now, take the income you personally get from your biz and divide the number of hours you work and find out what you really make per hour versus what you thought your time was worth. . . . Assuming you said you time was worth only $25 per hour and you work a 10-hour day, 222 days per year, and you throw away only 10 percent of your time, that’s a whopping $5,000 plus per year that’s not in your pocket. Not to mention the new sales and profits that just may be passing you by because you just ‘can’t get there.’”

Milk Prices (Dairy Outlook, Aug. ’06). “The U.S. average all-milk price through August of this year has been 17 percent below last year. This decline is due directly to reduced prices for cheese, butter, and nonfat dry milk. The all-milk price fell from $14.50 per cwt in January to $11.80 per cwt in July. Prices then rose modestly to $11.90 per cwt in August due to higher cheese and butter prices. As commodity prices improve so will the Class III and IV prices and therefore the all-milk price. We are forecasting the all-milk price will rise a dollar per cwt in September and then peak at $13.72 per cwt by November.” Read Ken Bailey’s Dairy Outlook newsletter at http://dairyoutlook.aers.psu.edu/reports/Pub2006/DairyOutlookAug06.pdf.

Floating Above Lagoon Wastewater (Agricultural Research, Aug. ’06). “Lagoons are commonly used to store wastewater from confined-feeding operations of dairy and swine. The wastewater is generally applied to land as fertilizer. But if the waste is not applied properly, excess nitrogen and phosphorus from it may eventually contaminate drinking water, impair soil quality, and cause dead zones in surface waters. Agricultural Research Service scientists are studying a way to use those excess nutrients. The basic concept is to grow vegetation on special mats placed on the lagoons. The vegetation can them be harvested and composted and used as a soil amendment. If grass is grown, it can be removed intact and transplanted as sod. . . . Although not yet evaluated, the method also has potential for reducing odor problems associated with lagoons.” Read the article and view photos at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug06/lagoon0806.htm.

‘If We Can Take One Big Employer Down…’ (BusinessWeek, Aug. 21, ’06). “The Minuteman Project, the controversial border watchdog, is now targeting companies that hire undocumented workers. . . . dozens of branches are popping up in the heartland. . . . This explosion of activity presents a potential hazard for U.S. employers. The immigration debate in Washington is deadlocked between hard-line House Republicans who want a border crackdown and a Bush-backed guest worker/legalization bill that passed the Senate in May. . . . Meanwhile an outpouring of sentiment against illegals has resulted in the passage of 13 employment-related immigration state laws this year.” Read the complete article at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998043.htm

When Your Family’s the Boss (Business Management, Turfgrass Producers Int’l, Aug/Sept. ’06). “The majority of family-owned businesses don’t survive past the second generation although succeeding generations have every intention of keeping the business going. Factors ranging from the lack of estate planning to dissension among family members can cause the business to close its doors. The more stress a business has, the slimmer its chance for survival.” Author Laura Michaud includes the following suggestions “to reduce and possibly eliminate the stress from any family-owned business succession: schedule quarterly family business meetings; hire an outside board of directors; simplify your life by focusing on leaving your work life at work and your family life at home; learn to say ‘no.’”

Make your financing work for you is the “Tools for Profit” feature in Dairy Herd Management (Aug. ’06). “In order to remain financially viable, one must seek a financial structure that helps bridge the gaps in cash flow during the low cycles. Dedicated planning, combined with a lending institution that understands your business and accepts your business plan as valid, can help you achieve this. . . . If a dairy has sufficient equity and a business plan that is profit-based, securing longer-term lines on cattle is definitely more cash-flow friendly than numerous 36-month-term notes. Many farms with cash-flow problems have incorrectly structured debt. . . In order to get the terms and debt structure you desire, you need to take charge of your debt. That means seeking a bank and banker that will take time to understand your business. You will have to prove you need it, that you can manage it, and that you are a good loan for the bank.” Read the complete article at http://www.dairyherd.com/directories.asp?pgID=726&ed_id=5661 (registration required).

Penn State receives funding for digester research (Manure Manager, Jul/Aug ’06). “Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences recently received US Department of Agriculture funding for research that will address key profitability and performance challenges with establishing and operating on-farm digesters and developing standards for digester design. Tom Richard, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, believes the potential for Pennsylvania farmers using digesters is enormous. ‘Anaerobic digesters can provide significant environmental benefits on dairy farms, while producing renewable energy for on-farm use or sale to the utility grid,’ he said.” Read a version of this article on the Penn State website at http://live.psu.edu/story/18043.

Small Business Development Centers Bring Experience To Dairy Farms (Lancaster Farming, Aug. 5, ’06). “Dairy farmers can improve their businesses with new tools, ideas and business approaches thanks to a new alliance formed by the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Community and Economic Development and the Pennsylvania Small Business Development Centers (SBDC). . . . By delivering complete business assistance programs tailored to the individual dairy farm’s needs, the 16 SBDCs will help dairy producers with management practices, finance, business planning, marketing and succession planning issues. . . . For more information about the profit team program or the SBDC, contact Gary Heckman at 717-346-0849 or gheckman@state.pa.us.”

Public Outcry Surfaces Over NAIS Issue (Lancaster Farming, Aug. 5, ’06). An opinion piece by Roy Maurer, beef producer from Northumberland County, reports on a Berks County meeting at which “Attendees were outraged over the proposed rules and regulations which could be final and mandatory by 2009. . . . None of the attendees spoke positively about the proposed rules, with the only vocal proponents of NAIS being the USDA officials. . . . As written, this proposed legislation will directly affect all citizens who buy locally-produced food and will also affect small farmers to a greater degree than large contract operations. . . . If you are concerned over NAIS and these proposed rules and regulations, contact your legislators, the USDA, PDA, and the U.S. and Pennsylvania Secretaries of Agriculture.”

Texas manure solutions (Manure Manager, Jul/Aug ’06). “The 15-year and ongoing effort to manage the manure generated by intensive dairy farming in the North Bosque River Watershed area of north-central Texas makes it abundantly clear why proper manure management practices . . . are a critical aspect to any farming operation. Only a massive effort on the part of state and federal authorities to educate farmers about proper manure management practices, installation of lagoons, and an aggressive composting program have significantly reduced the amount of manure being applied to area farmland. . . . The result: The risk of significant manure run-off into the North Bosque River has been reduced. . . . (T)he North Bosque River flows in to Lake Waco, which serves as a water supply reservoir for more than 200,000 people. . . . Both the dairy industry and composters acknowledge that the government assistance provided so far was meant to get proper manure management practices and composting established. Eventually, the businesses will have to prove that they are economically viable through the development of reliable markets for the compost. . . . However, given the potential liability resulting from water supply contamination, it’s unlikely that either the state or federal authorities will exit the scene any time soon.”

Without Immigrant Workers, Who Will Milk the Cows? asks an article in Dairy Herd Management (Aug. ’06). Author Thomas Quaife discusses “the difficult and precarious situation that many dairies find themselves in today regarding immigrant labor. . . . Of the farms in New York state with 500 or more cows, probably 80 percent or more employ Hispanic workers. . . And, interest in Hispanic workers is even growing among dairies with 100 or fewer cows. . . Despite the proven reliability of Hispanic workers—and their importance to the overall dairy economy—there’s a lingering threat that these workers could be lost to immigration-enforcement activities. For now, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) seems to be taking a hands-off approach to the issue of illegal immigrants on dairy farms.” Read the complete article at http://www.dairyherd.com/directories.asp?pgID=724&ed_id=5657 (registration required).

Milk Check 101—How markets affect prices is the second installment of a two-part series in Hoard’s Dairyman (Aug. 10, ’06). This article references a 24-page publication, Basic Milk Pricing Concepts for Dairy Farmers, by Ed Jesse and Bob Cropp, University of Wisconsin. In their publication, Jesse and Cropp note, “we attempt to explain milk pricing concepts for dairy farmers and others who don’t need to know all of the intricate aspects, but who do need to have a basic understanding of how federal milk marketing order prices are derived and how orders and other federal milk pricing rules affect their farm-level milk prices.” You can access a PDF file of the Jesse/Cropp publication at http://www.aae.wisc.edu/future/publications/basic_milk_pricing.pdf.

Archived News Articles

2007: Current
2006: Jan | Feb | Mar | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec
2005: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec
2004: May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec