Farmers in 40 states submitted a total of 471 herd-retirement bids in late November to CWT, reflecting “the continuing financial stress that many farmers are facing as milk prices plunge below the cost of production,” said Jerry Kozak, president and CEO of NMPF, which administers CWT. Kozak noted that although the costs of dairy feed and diesel fuel have dropped, milk prices have fallen faster.

CWT field auditors will begin visiting the 184 farms whose bids were accepted, checking their milk production records, inspecting their herds, and tagging each cow for processing. All farmers will be notified no later than Jan. 12, 2009, as to whether their bid was among those accepted in this herd-retirement round, the sixth one that CWT has conducted since 2003.

Once CWT field auditors inspect and accept the herds offered as part of the bidding process, farmers have 15 days in which to send their animals to a processing plant. CWT will again provide each farmer the NMPF animal-handling guidelines for the proper culling and transporting of dairy cattle, Kozak said.

Jim Tillison, chief operating officer of CWT, said that further bid information, including the average price of accepted bids, won’t be released until all the on-farm visits have been completed. The total number of bids initially accepted by this round includes:

Northeast: 63.6 million pounds of milk; 23 farms accepted; 3,117 number of cows

Southeast: 65.2 million pounds of milk; 27 farms accepted; 3,741 number of cows

Midwest: 63.6 million pounds of milk; 47 farms accepted; 3,224 number of cows

Southwest: 295.6 million pounds of milk; 38 farms accepted; 17,106 number of cows

West: 718.3 million pounds of milk; 49 farms accepted; 33,890 number of cows