Estate Planning

Wow it has been 2 months since I have posted. In this post I would like to share some information on estate planning for landowners. The natural gas play in our area of northern Pa. is going to change the bank accounts and estates of many landowners. For information regarding estate planning, go to the Bradford County website( http://bradford.extension.psu.edu/) and click on (Estate planning for landowners with gas leases). Let me know what you think.

new milk futures update

AS of today, October 6, 2009 we have seen another uptick in the near term dairy futures market. Today October 2009 up $.04 to $12.84, November up $.27 to $14.27 and December up $.23 to $14.72. What price can a dairy producer expect based on these futures prices?
As any good extension educator will tell you, "It Depends" It does really depend on the individual basis that each farm has. If your basis (simple definition is the difference between the futures price and the mailbox price received) is $2.00 then you can plan $2.00 over the class III price. Same if your particular basis is $3.00. I would use at least three years worth of milk prices to begin to get an accurate picture of the farm's basis.

Dairy Update October 2, 2009

Lots of things happening right now in the dairy industry. Yesterday we heard that $350 million would be available to the dairy industry, $290 million of that going to direct payments through the US Secretary of Ag. Today there apparently is some hold up as to how payments would be distributed with California legislator Barbara Boxer arguing that payment should not be based on the MILC limits of 2.985 million pounds of milk production. Senator Casey and Senator Shumer would like to see payments with the same limits as MILC.
We will see where the arguments falls out.
Class III futures increased substantially today with October '09 up $.07 to $12.79, November class III up $.21 to $13.96, and December '09 up $.27 to $14.45.
Some of you may have seen on the news that a dairy producer in Pennsylvania is seeing the media clout of PETA with a video of the farm being widely distributed. Folks, lets not forget the importance of animal well being. Animal rights people seem to be now focusing on our dairy industry. let's make sure we don't give these folks anything to talk about in the media.

Good news to report. Total number of dairy farms taking advantage of dairy advisory teams in the three county area of Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga, is currently at 29. Wow, very impressive.
Finally, a 3rd round of herd retirements through CWT was announced yesterday. Dairy producers have until October 15th to have bids postmarked. A cap of $5.25 on bids will be applied again in this round of retirements. For more info, here is the website address, www.cwt.coop.

Profit team meetings

Dairy profit teams can help local dairy producers increase profits, find and correct bottlenecks on the dairy farm, and be an excellent sounding board for ideas. Thanks to funding provided by Pa Department of Ag and the Center for Dairy Excellence, the northern tier of Pennsylvania is home to many active profit teams that meet on a regular basis. Here is short video clip demonstrating how a local team may operate.

A little email humor

Here at Penn State Extension the email world seems to have taken over just about every part of our communication. With 40 and 50 emails a day, there is certainly a good chance that I miss one from time to time. Sometimes I miss responding to an important one because quite frankly I look at it one day, don't respond immediately and then forget it was ever there. These jokes fit in with this idea about how emails have taken over our lives.
You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop to check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading.
You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again

Milk Futures as of June 9,2009

The volatility in the dairy market place continues to increase. This includes large price swings in the Class III futures markets. Take a look.

1. February 9, 2009 - price of June class III milk predicted at $12.47


2. March 9, 2009 - price of June Class III milk predicted at $11.44


3. April 9, 2009 - price of class III milk predicted at $11.68


4. May 8, 2009 - price of class III milk predicted at $10.55


5. June 8, 2009 - price of class III milk predicted at $9.92

July, August, September, etc same volatility.

Dairy farmers are currently very pessimistic about the dairy industry and rightfully so. There are various suggestions out there. Whatever changes might be made need to happen soon as our local farmers are losing equity very quickly.

MILC Update

Well, we have seen the first of the MILC payments being distributed for 2009. The first payment was for February milk and payed $1.51 per hundred weight of milk produced.The preliminary for March milk is above $2.00. Final calcualtions will be made as soon as the final figures come in for soybean, corn, and alfalfa hay prices. I will try to keep you updated as soon as I receive these final prices from NASS.

2009 Northern Tier Dairy Day

Northern Tier Dairy Day-Managing Change

Northern Tier Dairy Day will be held this year on February 16, 2009 at the Towanda High School. Registration will begin at 9:00 a.m. with the program beginning at 10:30 a.m., and concluding at 2:15 p.m., lunch will be provided. A vendor trade show will take place in the high school gymnasium.
Richard Brock of Brock Associates will provide a perspective on the tremendous change in the Ag. markets during the last year. He writes a monthly column for two agricultural magazines and appears regularly on both Ag. Day television show and US Farm Report. The other speaker for the day is Dennis Buffington PhD, a professor of Agriculture and Biological Engineering at Penn State University. He focuses his research on energy strategies for agricultural production, food processing systems, and residential housing. The overall objective of his extension and research program activities is to document and communicate the optimal use of energy for production and processing operations in order to increase profitability and cash flow.
There will be other programs in addition to the speakers listed above.
These include; Crop Pest Update with Mark Madden, PSU (1 core/1 category)
9:45 a.m.- 10:15 a.m. and 12:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.

4-H activities for youth in attendance

Pie Auction
2:45 p.m. (to benefit the 4-H Dairy Program and local Dairy Princess Program)

Door prizes will be given throughout the day and the Bradford Co. dairy princess royalty will be providing milk, cheese, and ice cream. Please RSVP by February 10th, by calling the Extension Office at (570)265-2896.

Class III Futures Prices as of January 21, 2009

As many know, Class III futures have dropped like a rock in the last couple of weeks. Here is the latest.

Why we need 4-H programs!!!!

Here is a video that tells it all. a little background, this video is about a family from Los angeles that has lived in the city just a little too long. Watch and enjoy!

MILC Update #2

I think I now understand the sign up for MILC. The big dairies that exceed 2.985 million #'s of milk can sign up in February and have a startup date in February. They should not sign up from January 15 through the end of the month because they cannot select February then as their start up month. (They do have until January 21 to change their start date if they were confused by the initial sign up).
The smaller herds less than 2.85 million #'s of milk should sign up as soon as possible. Our FSA office is suggesting they sign up in January and they will put in a January startup date for these producers.
For any big dairies that want their startup date to be March 2009, they can sign up from February 1-14 and then again anytime in March for the March startup date.Our FSA office asked me to remind all the big producers that when October 2009 arrives the rules are that they must sign up by the 14th of the preceding month they would like to begin their MILC timeline for next fiscal year.

MILC Dairy Update

This is a clarification of the MILC rules for initial sign up. Can the government make it any more confusing?
If I am reading this correctly:
1. Dairy farmers who signed up with misinformation or confusion from FSA offices can amend the signup 2. If a dairy producer wants to sign up for February milk, they can sign up through January 14th (but not from January 15-January 31) or can sign up in February. This makes no sense to me. Could someone explain this one?
3. The latest projections suggest that February might not be the best start date for large producers who exceed 2.985 million pounds of milk a year especially if they only have 2 or 3 months of milk production to work with. Check out this website for projections from National Milk. http://www.nmpf.org/milk_pricing/milc_payments.