Sargento Cheese plant workers in Plymouth, WI finally got lucky and won a recent Powerball jackpot. They get to split up $208.6 million and apparently are going to keep on shredding cheese or whatever it is they do.
Entringer, 55, said workers on the second shift at the Sargento Cheese plant in Plymouth pooled their money for three years before they bought the winning ticket to the Aug. 5 drawing. The winners, who call themselves the “100 Miracles,” turned in their ticket Friday. They have hired a lawyer and plan to split the prize equally. They spoke Wednesday morning at Ma and Pa’s Grocery Express in Fond du Lac, where they bought the ticket.
Bid On Some Fine Dairy Products
If you’d like to bid on some fine cheese, buttter or yogurt then World Dairy Expo is the place to be next Tuesday.
The World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest will hold an auction of all first place winners on Tuesday, October 3, 2006, 5:00 pm, Alliant Energy Center, 1919 Alliant Energy Center Way, Madison, WI.
The October 3 event will begin at 5:00 pm with a reception featuring a cheese fondue and special foods and pastries created by the MATC Culinary School utilizing the 2nd & 3rd place (cheese and butter classes) winners of the World Dairy Expo Championship Dairy Product Contest. Free beer and a cash bar will also be offered. At 6:00pm the auction will commence with Mr. Doug Wilson, Cooperative Resources International, serving as the featured auctioneer. All successful bidders will receive the product they bid on, plus a commemorative keepsake for their participation. A portion of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Professional Dairy Producers of WI (PDPW) to support their efforts to assist current and beginning producers achieve success in dairy farming. The proceeds will also be used to help defray contest expenses.
Private Label Organic Expands Operations
After a year-long transition, the Aurora Organic Dairy (AOD), the organization’s second organic dairy farm in Dublin, Texas is ready for production, tripling the company’s pastureland.
Aurora Organic Dairy the nation’s leading producer of private-label and store-brand organic milk and butter. Certified-organic pasture for the 3,300 organic milk cows at AOD’s farm in the Lone Star State will jump from 800 to 2,800 acres. This increase helps to fulfill AOD’s long-term pasture expansion for the Texas dairy, a plan initiated in the spring of 2004. The organic production company includes headquarters offices in Boulder, Colo., and. an organic dairy farm and on-farm organic dairy processing plant near Platteville, Colo. In July 2005, a second organic dairy farm near Dublin, Texas, completed its year-long transition to certified organic production. The company recently developed a third, state-of-the-art organic dairy farm — High Plains Organic Dairy — near Kersey, Colo., which began organic milk production in September 2006.
Full story
40-Cent Increase From CWT
In July, dairy producers began contributing 10 cents per hundredweight to the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program. Now an independent analysis reports that the affects of CWT has been at least 40 cents since it began in 2003.
An independent economic analysis of the impact of Cooperatives Working Together has found that the dairy self-help program has raised farmers’ prices by at least 40 cents per hundredweight since it began operations in 2003. The study was performed by Dr. Scott Brown of the University of Missouri, a nationally-known farm policy expert who is often called on by the U.S. Congress to assess agricultural economic issues.
The cumulative impact of CWT from the start of 2004 through the first half of 2006 is $1.97 billion in additional producer revenue, according to Brown’s evaluation. It showed that the milk price impact has grown with each herd retirement program. The normal attrition of cows in a herd was taken into consideration in determining the effect on milk production in the years following a herd removal.
Fresh Measurements of Your Next Feed Crop
Smooth transition to a new feed crop starts with analysis per back-to-basics guidelines. For example, separate the evaluations between the grass portion of your corn and the high- moisture grain. Open your mind, though, to new strategies, advises Dr. Bill Mahanna, coordinator of global nutritional sciences for Pioneer Hi-Bred. New testing methods are providing valuable information on degree of kernel damage, as well as starch and fiber digestibility. These refined tools can also account for variability due to hybrids and moisture content.
Dr. Bill Mahanna on transitioning to new crop feed (3 min MP3)
To see all archived Pioneer Forage Forum podcasts, click here.
Previous Forage Forum podcasts are also archived at the Pioneer GrowingPoint website. To access them, go to www.pioneer.com/growingpoint and click “Livestock Nutrition” and “Forage Blog.” Those not registered for Pioneer GrowingPoint website can call 800-233-7333 Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT for assistance.
Hood Blimp Crash Lands
Hood Dairy got a bit more publicity than planned Tuesday when a promotional blimp that regularly flies above Boston’s Fenway Park crashed into a wooded area. The 90-foot-long blimp became stuck atop trees near an elementary school in Manchester-By-The-Sea about 25 miles north of Boston. It took two hours to rescue the pilot who was not injured.
The story has already received national coverage with pictures and video of the stranded blimp and quotes about it “moving up and down like a whale in the water,” before it crashed. According to the local CBS affiliate, a 12-man team from Beverly Airport is working to deflate the blimp so it can be removed from the area, which is near the airport and an elementary school. This process could take a few days.
The blimp, which was scheduled to make an appearance at Tuesday’s Red Sox game, was reportedly doing “exposure flying” when it crashed. Hood Dairy is certainly getting some exposure from the mishap.
Hood Dairy plants are located in Massachusettes, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, and Virginia. Headquarters are in Chelsea, Mass.
European Milk Quotas May Be Phased Out
Europe’s system of milk production quotas may be phased out to help the dairy industry prepare for their planned abolition in 2014, EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said on Sunday. Created in the mid-1980s to deal with the European Union’s notorious milk surpluses. “I think the milk quota system will be inadequate when we put constraints on the sector to develop and be competitive in future, if we do not give the possibilities for producers to increase production without having to invest (what is) in some member states a very high price to buy a milk quota,” she said. There are huge differences around the EU in the price of traded milk production quotas for farmers wishing to produce milk that qualifies for EU subsidies.
Read the full Reuters story datelined Finland.
Manure Roundtable
Manure may not be the most popular dinner table conversation, but it will be the subject of a roundtable discussion at this year’s World Dairy Expo.
Pro-Act Microbial is actually sponsoring a series of Manure Management Roundtables during the Expo, giving dairy farmers an opportunity to share experiences and to learn what is working for others.
On Wednesday, October 4th and Thursday, October 5th, the public is invited to these roundtables, both held at 10:30 a.m. in the Exhibition Hall, second floor, Waubesa room.
The panel will be moderated by Dale Butcher, sales manager for Pro-Act Microbial. Other panel members include Tom Wagner of Wagner Dairy in Middleton, Wisconsin, Dan Monson of Springrove Dairy in Brodhead, Wisconsin, and Dr. Chuzhao Lin and Bill Campion of Pro-Act Microbial.
Wide Load Ahead Finished
Here’s the final version of “Wide Load Ahead” that we reported on previously.
It’s an original oil painting by Denise Rich which will be on display throughout World Dairy Expo, October 3 to 7, in Madison, Wis., in the USJersey exhibit area.
Thanks to Denise for sending in the final version.
You can find out more about Denise “The Rich Artist” online.
Dairy Twine Outfit
Here’s an interesting story I think you’ll enjoy.The Elmore Field Days in New Zealand hosts an annual Ag Art Wear Competition. The young lady pictured, Leanne Cavallaro, made her entry completely of yellow and blue baling twine from her parent’s dairy farm!
The outfit features a hat, handbag, necklace, earrings, thongs, bikini top, skirt and under skirt. The pieces are made out of plaited blue and black twine and hessian that has been painted blue. She said it took her about two weeks working on and off to make. “I like the colours of the hay string – it’s bright,” Ms Cavallaro said. “I called it (the outfit) `Hay Time’.”