Agribusiness Dairyman-recent article:US Dairy Producer choices

[Guest guest]

A recent article (http://www.mydairyman.com/flipbooks/July-Dairy-Flipbook/index.html#/6/) titled "US dairy producers are left with only three choices..." in the July issue of Agribusiness Dairyman is a very well written summary of the current state of affairs in the dairy industry.

I found one of the most interesting comments was "by the time this Congress of the next gets around to enacting legislation in the 2012 Farm Bill, every cow in America will have been culled and replaced in the milk lines. And thousands more dairy producers will be out of business"

I believe that every dairy farmer should read that statement a couple of times and take time to give serious thought to what is being stated.

The time period noted for EVERY milking cow in the US to be culled is less than 2 years and the value of the approximately 9 million cows is about $1.5 billion. That amount does not include the additional billions of dollars lost due to the factors leading to the culling which is mastitis, lameness, production, death etc. Many of these factors are ultimately related to mastitis as degraded health, udder pain and sublclinical mastitis leads to reduced production, poorer quality milk, reduced body score etc.

The dairy industry has become so acclimated to the excessive cow turnover and associated losses that it is generally not only ignored but justified. The question to be asked that relates directly to the point of the article is how can anyone expect to have a profitable and healthy industry while accepting multi-billion dollar annual losses as normal? The fundamental basis of any dairy farm is to produce milk from a healthy cow. It is not to produce as many heifer replacements as possible or to grow as many crops as can be tilled on the land. The situation has become so bad that first calf heifers now out-produce second and later lactation animals as noted by Nigel Cook of the University of WI (http://www.progressivedairy.com/index.php?option=com_content & view=article & id=6410:cow-comfort-and-health & catid=51:cow-comfort & Itemid=77) and labeled as a "failing" to provide a proper rest for the animals.

Further consider the number of dairy farms as it continues to drop below 50,000. The above noted financial losses amount to an average of $50,000 to $100,000 per farm per year. The article notes that many thousands of more farms will cease to exist within the next few years if there are not changes made.

Consider these facts if they were to apply to another industry. Would an airline such as US Air simply accept the fact that they would have to replace every airplane in their fleet every year or two because of some design or maintenance issue? Clearly they would either change that situation or go out of business. Isn't it time to start finding a solution to this fundamental problem? The Agribusiness article makes a case that relying on policy changes and organization are slow in coming if at all in providing a solution. The obvious course of action in the near term should be to address the decades old multi-billion dollar annual losses and stop accepting them as a part of the dairy business.

If these losses are not addressed the same conversations will be taking place in another couple of years after the cull rate has risen further and the number of US dairies remaining has further reduced to under 20,000.

Regards,

Bill Gehm

Partner,LR Gehm LLC

9502 NYS Rt 79

Lisle, NY 13797

www.CoPulsation.com

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