ILDEX 2006 In Vietnam & India

Chuck ZimmermanMarch 9, 2006Farm Show, International

If you’re travelling in the area of Vietnam next week you might want to check out ILDEX 2006. If you miss that they’ll have one in India in April. It stands for “The International Livestock & Dairy Expo,” which in this case will be “For Emerging Markets In Asia.”

The rising demand for truly international livestock and dairy expositions in Vietnam and India parallels the demand for modern technology to upgrade the quality and standard of their livestock and dairy production. Both countries hope to grab a large share of the lucrative export market.

In Vietnam, NEO is teaming up with Vietnam National Trade Fair and Advertising Company (VINEXAD) for ILDEX Vietnam 2006, scheduling on 16-18 March 2006 at HIECC, Ho Chin Minh City, Vietnam. While for ILDEX India 2006 in India NEO’s partner is PIXIE, or Publication India Pvt. Ltd. – – India’s leading publisher of trade directories and publications which serve the Indian poultry and livestock industries. ILDEX India 2006 is scheduled on 27 – 29 August 2006, New Delhi, India.

Does Your School Have Healthy Student Bodies?

Chuck ZimmermanMarch 9, 2006Dairy Group, Education

The MilkPEP people want children to be healthier and milk can be part of the plan to make it happen. So, they’re looking for some healthy student bodies (schools that is).

From now until June 15, MilkPEP’s “America’s Healthiest Student Bodies” contest will identify schools that have the most active and healthiest students. “Recognizing schools that are encouraging good nutrition and physical activity ties in well with our message to teens that milk is an important part of a healthy lifestyle,” says IDFA Senior Manager of Marketing Victor Zaborsky. “It also keeps milk top-of-mind with schools, students and parents.”

Students can nominate their schools by filling out an application on MilkPEP’s website, www.whymilk.com. The application asks for a 75-word essay on why a school should be selected and includes a questionnaire for background on the school’s nutrition, athletics and other health and wellness programs.

The 50 winning schools will be announced at an event in Washington, D.C., in late August. Each school will receive a $1,000 grant to support fitness and nutrition programs and a special “got milk?” recognition assembly. The student who nominates a winning school will receive a subscription to Teen People and Sports Illustrated as well as a prize package from Adidas and Baby Phat/Phat Farm clothing lines. All student nominators will have the chance to receive a phone call from one of the next milk mustache celebrities.

A New Way to Trade

Andy VanceMarch 7, 2006Agribusiness, Dairy Business, Industry News, Milk

If you use the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for any risk management of your Class III Milk, you can start trading 24 hours a day!

This week, the CME began trading contract on the Globex platform, and will trade simultaneously with the open outcry market during the day. The idea of the electronic contracts is typically to add more investors, although past history has shown that the electronic contracts trade mere fractions of the volume their open-outcry brethren exchange.

Ultimately, the decision to use these contracts is really up to you and your risk management professional. The variance between the price and bid between the electronic and outcry contracts will vary, but should be negligible for most producers.

Father and Son Drown in Lagoon

Andy VanceMarch 7, 2006Industry News, Production

KFSN-TV in Fresno, CA report a real tradgedy in the community, leaving too many questions about how a father and son died at a local dairy. Deputies found the 27-year-old Luiz Gutierrez and his eight-year-old son at the bottom of the manure lagoon.

The sheriff says the father had taken his son to help him feed the calves.

It happened at Contente Dairy, east of Lemoore.

The sheriff says he does not know what would have caused the father and son to get into the pool, but he says it would be hard for anyone to escape it, once they were in.

UPDATE – This story is even more tragic when you realize the irony that this is Agricultural Safety Awareness Week. Another reason why we need to be reminded of the human capital at risk in our industry. Spring is the time when the vast majority of farm injuries occur – so BE SAFE!

Dairy Prices Down Again Last Week

Andy VanceMarch 7, 2006Agribusiness, Butter, Cheese, Dairy Business, Milk, Production

Prices for dairy products fell again last week, with average prices for Cheddar, Butter, Nonfat Dry Milk and Dry Whey all sliding.

Cheddar Cheese price for 40lb block averaged $1.22/lb for the week, down 3.4 cents/lb from the previous week. 500lb barrel price dropped 2.5 cents/lb at $1.20/lb.

Butter price for 25kg and 68lb boxes averaged $1.20/lb, down 2 cents on the week.

Nonfat dry milk price for bag, tote, and tanker slid 1.8 cents to average 85.3 cents per pound, with Dry whey prices for bag, tote, and tanker hitting 35 cents per pound, down 0.6 cents on the week.

Ice Cream + Brain = Pleasure

Chuck ZimmermanMarch 6, 2006Ice Cream, Industry News

Maybe somebody was skeptical about ice cream being pleasing to the brain and the taste buds. Whatever the reason, MaggieMoos Ice Cream & Treatery decided to get some scientific evidence to prove it. I say “duh.” My brain’s been telling me ice cream is good since I had my tonsils out in first grade (actually even before that).

But it took scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London to determine that this enjoyable feeling is, in fact, rooted in reality. Scientists at the Institute have demonstrated that ice cream has the ability to stimulate the pleasure zones in the brains of those who savor it. Using before-and-after tests, scientists showed an immediate effect on parts of the brain known to activate when people enjoy themselves, including the orbitofrontal cortex, considered the “processing” area at the front of the brain.

After the more-than-willing participants ate vanilla ice cream, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect regions in the brain affected by changes in levels of blood oxygenation. These changes indicated enjoyment — similar to the pleasure experienced by people who have just won a jackpot or are listening to their favorite music.

Story Briefs

Chuck ZimmermanMarch 6, 2006Industry News

Okay, time for some news again.

Cooperatives Working Together announced Monday that it has accepted two bids from WestFarm Foods of Seattle, WA, to export 40 metric tons (88,000 pounds) of Cheddar cheese to the Netherlands, and an additional 100 metric tons (220,000 pounds) of Cheddar to Egypt. CWT will pay its export bonus to the bidder, once completion of the cheese shipments is verified.

7 million gallons of milk a day to be used by a cheese plant near Clovis and Portales, NM according to a story in the Portales News Tribune.

No News But Some Country Music

Chuck ZimmermanMarch 6, 2006Audio

I’m sorry I haven’t posted since last week. I really thought I’d find some dairy news at Commodity Classic but in all the busy-ness that didn’t happen. However, since we’re running a video iPod contest for New Holland I thought I’d share this with you.

Our New Holland, “Down on the Farm” Classic iPod Keepsake Contest” is tied in with their promotion of the new Michael Peterson CD. Here’s your chance to own an iPod since we’ll be giving a video iPod away to one lucky winner and it will contain the new CD.

You can get a preview of it in the audio file posted here from Michael’s performance at the general session last Friday at Commodity Classic. In fact, he wrote a song just for corn and soybean growers (and all farmers) and debuted it there.

You can listen to Michael’s stage performance right here: Michael Peterson Performance (27 min MP3)

What Are You Feeding Your Cows?

Andy VanceMarch 3, 2006Agribusiness, Dairy Business, Nutrition, Production, Training, University

How well do you know your nutrition program? Are you squeezing every drop of potential production out of your milking string? I just read an article discussing how your profitability will suffer if you either over or under estimate forage requirements for your herd. With that in mind, you might consider making plans to join me in Fort Wayne later this Spring.

Purdue, Michigan State, and The Ohio State University invite you to the 15th Annual Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference at the Grand Wayne Convention Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Universities are joined by experts from a whole host of University and industry areas of expertise. The Conference, held April 25 & 26, will feature discussions on nutrition and animal health, ration formulation and forages, and nutrition and the environment. The overall theme of the conference, “New Developments in Dairy Nutrition and Feeding Systems,” will be extremely relevent because of the impact of dairy farms and dairy nutrition on the environment and the public perception of agriculture.

Some specific session topics include feeding corn disteller grains and the maximum inclusion rate, recent research on energy intake and reproduction, digestibility of fat supplements, in-vivo digestibility of forages, and starch digestibility of corn and corn silage. Speakers will hail from Cornell, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Illinois, Elanco, USDA, Utah State, South Dakota State, K-State, Penn State, and Virginia Tech.

Registration is $130, and is due by April 7th.

Microsoft Wants to Track Your Cows

Andy VanceMarch 3, 2006Animal ID, Government, Industry News

It may seem like an unusal statement – until you think about it. Microsoft announced this week that they have partnered with ViaTrace and the US Animal Identifical Organisation to launch an animal tracking database. ViaTrace actually developed the database on Microsoft servers and operating systems for the USAIO. According to this trifecta of organizations, the dateabase does meet all government requirements for a database, while meeting producers concerns about confidentiality.

While the Secretary of agriculture has in the past expressed his support for a private database, there have been legal questions as to whether or not a private company could legally main such a database. Another producer concern has been any additional cost in implementing such a system – This database is reported to cost less than 30 cents per head to enroll.

ViaTrace has already begun accepting data, collecting information from existing state and association databases, along with pilot projects in 17 states. The system is expected to come online later in 2006, sometime during third quarter. Producers will be able to enter data wireless from the field, from their home or office computer, and by phone or US mail. The first step, naturally, is registering for a premise ID, which many have alread done.

There are still plenty of details to work out with this Animal ID situation, but work is being done in almost every sector of livestock production.

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