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.