Industry News

A move to temporarily reopen the federal government while budget negotiations and debate over “the wall” continues has dairy and agricultural organizations hopeful the 2018 Farm Bill can start to be implemented.

In a marketplace increasingly crowded by plant-based imitation dairy products, the results of two new surveys show that customers are confused about whether those products are indeed dairy foods and whether they carry the same nutritional value.

All USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices nationwide will soon reopen to provide additional administrative services to farmers during the lapse in federal funding and partial government shutdown, according to U.S. Secretary of Ag Sonny Perdue.

Digest Highlights

• Dairy herd contraction likely in 2019
• Class I base price marginally better
• Global Dairy Trade index jumps
• Margins start January weaker, but there are signs of optimism
• Cottonseed seeing renewed export, dairy interest
• STATES: Judge rules against Wisconsin dairy regulatory settlement
• New York OSHA inspections of dairy farms to continue
• Wisconsin sets CAFO meetings
• INDUSTRY: Dairy aisle coming to online shopping
• Environmental impact of Canadian milk production improves

With the ongoing partial government shutdown and debate over a border wall, proposal to create a “blue card” program for improperly documented dairy and other ag workers and protect them against deportation has been introduced in both houses of Congress.

You’re busy – milking cows, managing employees and attending farm meetings and conferences. With that in mind, Progressive Dairyman looks at issues in the news impacting you and your dairy business.