Shelburne Farms Making Cheddar and Reservations

News EditorCheese

1102_p066-cheese1_398x280Great and interesting story about a farm in Vermont that is making their cheddar their own, and offering a dairy farming experience to others.

Shelburne Farms, 1,400 acres of pasture, gardens and woodland, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, along the shore of Vermont’s Lake Champlain. Besides offering $450-a-night accommodations in a 24-room inn, the farm employs 200 shepherds, dairymen, cheesemakers, woodsmen and gardeners, all of them dedicated to living and passing along what the farm calls a “pasture to palate” ethic. Guests can milk doe-eyed Brown Swiss cows beside a milkmaid who knows the Bessies so well she identifies them by their udders. “It’s about teaching people to become part of the story of their food,” says Peter Bullock, who runs summer camps for kids on the farm. “We tell people, ‘Try this! Doesn’t this feel good? Isn’t this fun?'”

Cheese is a relatively recent part of Shelburne’s history. In 1886 William Seward Webb (a physician turned Wall Street financier) and his wife, Eliza (Lila) Osgood Vanderbilt, commissioned Olmsted and architect Robert Henderson Robertson to construct a working farm that could double as a holiday retreat for high-society friends from New York City. It encompassed 3,800 acres with 400 acres of woodland, a breeding barn for carriage horses, a five-story farm barn, a dairy, a carriage barn and a 110-room Queen Anne Revival-style mansion. Olmsted, already distinguished for designing Manhattan’s Central Park, used islands of hardwoods and slopes of clover to make the place a haven of sustainable land management. But the farm fell into disrepair in the 1930s, eventually risking foreclosure until the Webbs’ great-grandchildren–Alexander and Marshall Webb, who, along with their four siblings, stood to inherit the estate–created a nonprofit educational entity on the farm in 1972. As such, the farm could accept donations and apply for federal grants to rebuild and maintain the estate; it also allowed for tax breaks associated with owning a conservation easement. (Papa Webb willed the barns and the land to the nonprofit in 1984.)

Today Shelburne is an unusual blend of nonprofit and for-profit operations that brought in $8.1 million in revenue last year. Of that, $4.1 million came from for-profit businesses: the inn and restaurant ($2.4 million); cheddar sales ($900,000, most of it mail order); gift shop items ($570,000); and special events like weddings and a Mozart festival ($240,000). The rest comes from various not-for-profit sources: the dairy; contributions, gifts and grants (Vermonters are big givers); summer camps; and adult classes on cheesemaking. The farm’s $4 million endowment, invested mostly in money market funds and U.S. Treasurys, kicked in $160,000 or so last year. Whole Foods has recently ponied up a $100,000 order.
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High Volume Dairy Implements Robotic Palletizing

Amanda NolzAgribusiness, Production, Products

Packworld.com recently released this information about a new plant packaging for butter products using robots. This is pretty cool. For more information, download the white paper on this topic here.

California Dairies’ Turlock, Calif., plant produces more than 170 different SKUs of butter in case sizes ranging from 8 to 55 pounds. This Motoman case history describes the plant’s transition from manual to robotic palletizing.

“The robot system has improved our ability to run in a consistent manner,” says Eric Snoke, Vice President of Operations. “We calculated that the payback for the system would be two years or less, based on direct labor savings alone, and that does not take into account the reduction in workmen compensation claims.”

CWT Tentatively Accepts 154 Bids

News Editorcwt, Industry News

cwtlogoCooperatives Working Together (CWT) announced that it has tentatively accepted 154 bids in the fourth herd retirement it has conducted in the last 12 months. The 26,412 cows and 517 million pounds of milk accepted in this round, combined with CWT’s three previous herd retirements since December 2008, equal a total reduction of milk production capacity of five billion pounds.

“Coming into 2009, CWT’s economists estimated that we would need to remove between five and six billion pounds of milk, the production of approximately 250,000 cows, through herd retirements,” said Jerry Kozak, President and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, which administers CWT. “We are pleased that the participation in this third herd retirement of 2009 has brought us to our goal of aligning supply with demand, and hastening the recovery of farm-level milk prices that plunged because of the global recession.”

CWT member farmers in 33 states submitted a total of 168 herd retirement bids during the two-week bidding period which ended October 15th. This is the ninth herd retirement in the past six years of CWT’s existence, and featured a maximum acceptable bid threshold of $5.25 per cwt., the same price ceiling as in the retirement conducted in August.

“We felt it was important to help milk prices continue to strengthen by conducting another herd retirement as soon as we completed farms audits for the previous round one in the summer,” noted Kozak. He said in addition to the 26,000 cows, 465 bred heifers were also accepted this week.

As with the two most recent herd retirements in 2009, producers whose bids are accepted in this herd retirement will be paid in two installments: 90% of the amount bid times the producer’s 12 months of milk production when it is verified that that all cows have gone to slaughter, and the remaining 10% plus interest at the end of 12 months following the farm audit, provided both the producer and his dairy facility – whether owned or leased – do not become involved in the commercial production and marketing of milk during that period.

Cooperatives Working Together is being funded by dairy cooperatives and individual dairy farmers, who are contributing 10 cents per hundredweight assessment on their milk production through December 2010.

Dairy Farmers Launch Organic Brand

Amanda NolzAgribusiness, Organic

E.B. Solomont with the Mother Nature Network recently published an article titled, Dairy Farmers Launch Organic Brand, in The Olympian in Washington state. This is an exciting new brand of organic milk products featured by several dairy farmers in the state of Maine. Check it out!

In the annals of rural farming, 10 organic dairy farmers in Maine are showing entrepreneurial spirit in trying economic times: After their contracts with a major milk processor were abruptly canceled, the farmers will distribute and sell their own cows’ milk locally under the name MOOMilk, short for Maine’s Own Organic Milk Co. MOOMilk is set to hit stores in Maine and Massachusetts by early November, just 18 months after the farmers faced far bleaker prospects, according to the Bangor Daily News.

It all started when H.P. Hood Inc. axed the dairy farms from its organic line for economic reasons. Furious, the farmers urged the milk processor to reconsider, particularly since many converted to organic at Hood’s urging. Hood refused, but rather than fall prey to a ravaged economy, the farmers banded together to form a cooperative with investors, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the Maine Farm Bureau and the Maine Department of Agriculture. With a price tag of $3.99 per half-gallon, the milk will be sold at standard organic prices and will take roughly 96 hours to get from the cow to the shelf.

Boehringer Ingelheim Acquires Fort Dodge Products

Cindy ZimmermanAnimal Health, Audio, Boehringer Ingelheim, Fort Dodge Animal Health, Pfizer

BIVI logoBoehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica Inc. (BIVI) has closed a deal with Pfizer to acquire a significant portion of the Fort Dodge Animal Health business. The acquisition, which includes products in the U.S., Australia, Canada and South Africa, as well as two manufacturing and research facilities located in Fort Dodge, Iowa, significantly increases the size of Boehringer Ingelheim’s companion animal and cattle portfolios and strengthens the company’s position as a leading vaccine supplier.

“We’ll be expanding our business significantly, in fact, doubling our sales in the United States,” said BIVI president George Heidgerken. “The product assets we’ve acquired from Fort Dodge are a broad range of strong brands in the cattle vaccine business. This is part of our long term strategy to improve our product offerings and our capabilities for the U.S. cattle producers and the U.S. cattle market.”

The cattle vaccines included in the acquisition include the Triangle®, Pyramid®, and Presponse® vaccine lines. Pharmaceutical products being acquired include Cydectin® (moxidectin) for cattle and sheep as well as Polyflex® (ampicillin sodium). The dairy portfolio includes the key brands Today® and Tomorrow®.

Listen to or download an interview with George Heidgerken here:

Live Dairy Cattle Exports Down

Amanda NolzAgribusiness, Dairy Business

r384984_1796501 ABC Rural recently posted a report on live dairy cattle export numbers, and like many areas in the agriculture industry, it’s not looking positive. (Photo courtesy of Allyson Horn) Here is the most recent news…

Live dairy cattle exports are 10,000 head below expectations so far this year. Cameron Hall, from LiveCorp, says it’s likely that just 40,000 dairy heifers will be exported from Australia this year. It’s a long way short of the 58,000 that were exported to more than 15 countries last year.

“Now that’s been an impact of the global financial crisis without doubt,” he says. “You know, we’ve seen an increase in the second half of the year on Australian currency rates, we’re seeing an increase on oil prices, all of which go into increasing the cost to supply Australian dairy cattle.”

Dairy Stimulus Helps Local Farmers

Amanda NolzDairy Business, Government

president-obamaKim Souza at the Morning Business News recently reported on the dairy stimulus that will soon be assisting local farmers. Last week, President Barack Obama signed a stimulus packaged for emergency funding, and the dairy producers will get a share of this stimulus package to aid in struggling times. Read on for more information…

Local dairy farms will soon share in the $350 million emergency funding stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday. The stipend may not be enough for some struggling farms to hang on given the broad economic plight in the industry, according to dairy insiders. Dairy farmers hit rock bottom this past year, battered by price deflation and volatile grain costs, said Wayne Kellogg, dairy expert from the University of Arkansas.

Base milk prices paid to Northwest Arkansas dairies plummeted an average of 40 percent in the months of February to August, compared to a year ago, Kellogg said. The dire economic conditions have forced adjustments in the dairy sector. Many of the local farms are hanging on in anticipation of government assistance during this crisis, Kellogg said.

Local farms likely will receive a direct payment ranging from 15 cents per 100 pounds of milk production to $1.80 per hundredweight, said Jackie Klippenstein, vice president of industrial and legislative affairs for Dairy Farmers of America. (Hundredweight is the standard unit of measure for milk, it is equal to 100 pounds.) There are any number of ways for the government to calculate payments.

Wisconsin Dairy Council kicks off iRock with Milk Promotion

News EditorDairy Checkoff, Equipment, Industry News, Milk

i rock with milkThe Wisconsin Dairy Council has introduced a new website and promotion called “iRock with Milk”, an exciting opportunity for local Wisconsin school districts to learn more about including milk in a healthy diet.

The Council is working with Wisconsin school foodservice to coordinate a statewide in-school milk promotion to remind all students that drinking milk with meals really “rocks.” The “iRock with Milk” promotion features 2nd Thought Band, a classic rock group of high school students from Whitefish Bay, Wis. 2nd thought bandA special contest for middle schools throughout Wisconsin will award seven schools with a concert by the band and the opportunity to celebrate milk as a healthy beverage choice. Over 1,200 cafeteria promotion kits will be distributed for this school year to Wisconsin schools.

As part of the promotion, students can visit the newly created website to download 2nd Thought songs, make music videos and enter to win prizes. On the site, visitors can make their own “moo-sic” video with the “Keys to Healthy Living” video creator. And they can enter for a chance to win an iPod nano®, an iPod shuffle® or an iTunes® gift card.

Dairy Producers Market Methane

Amanda NolzAgribusiness, energy

773d02fe-c0db-11de-853b-001cc4c002e0.preview-300 Tom Lutey at the Billings Gazette recently published a very interesting, thought-provoking read titled, Dairy farm utilizes alternative income sources on the next environmental step for cattle producers. It’s all about utilizing the methane for cattle and converting into reusable energy. This is a great example of just that, and from the comments about the article, I would say the general public supports this production practice, as well. (Photo courtesy Billings Gazette) Here is a piece of the article…

A farmer in tough times has to squeeze every penny from his operation, but Huls Dairy is squeezing in places few farmers have. Dairy cows at the Corvallis farm produce 6 million gallons of manure a year, which this fourth-generation farm in Northwest Montana’s Bitterroot Valley taps for methane fuel and a bagged, organic lawn-and-garden fertilizer sold as Afterburner Boost. The methane generates enough energy to power Huls’ 350-cow dairy operation, plus one home.

“Our farm has tried to utilize our cows, to market whatever we have,” said Tim Huls, who is facing the lowest payments in nearly three decades for his farm’s milk. “It wouldn’t be enough to offset the dairy crisis, in terms of taking you from being in the red, but at this point it’s paid its own way, particularly in fertilizer. Afterburner Boost does very well in the marketplace.”

Finding small ways to save or make a buck has become crucial for Montana farmers struggling with feast-or-famine market prices. Huls likens the erratic price behavior of his commodity to a seismograph reading for Yellowstone National Park. After receiving a record high price for his milk two years ago, Huls would now need dairy payouts to increase a third just to break even. For Huls Dairy, the decision to go into the methane energy business was as much about squeezing a dollar as bracing for environmental change. Methane from livestock is increasingly being viewed as a liability for farmers, one they might be penalized for producing possible federal legislation to curb global warming.

President Obama, Secretary Vilsack Push For Dairy Products in Schools

Amanda NolzGovernment, Milk, Nutrition

usda This is positive news for school kids and dairy producers alike. Reuters recently published an article about the praise International Dairy Foods Association has been giving President Obama and USDA Secretary Vilsack for their push for more dairy products in school lunch and breakfast programs. Kudos to these government officials for understanding the importance of dairy in growing children! Here is an excerpt from that article…

“Kids are eating far too few low fat dairy products,” said Vilsack. This is particularly important because the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s school meal programs are often the only source of dairy products in many children’s
diet.”

USDA data shows that per capita milk consumption has been falling for decades, and that this decline corresponds to the dramatic increase in per capita consumption of competing beverages among school children. The USDA also reports that the vast majority of children do not get the recommended amount of calcium. Only 5 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys aged 9 to 13 get the calcium they need.