EDITOR’S UPDATE BY DAVE NATZKE SPRING STRAINING A Farm Bill and federal dairy policy are on the upcoming 2012 sched- ule. Dairy news headlines and de- velopments this spring offered little clarity on how things will play out. growth in the yogurt market could lead to near- term raw milk shortages in the Northeast for fl uid and soft dairy products. But in California, Land O’Lakes-Western was playing defense, initiating supplemental base reduction measures, including substantial penalties ($10/cwt.) for any production over Earlier this year, I took my first base volumes, April 1 through June 30. In spring break since about 1979, visiting addition, producers in Tulare and Southern friends in Arizona and taking in some Cactus League baseball. My wife California would be subject to an additional 6% and I enjoyed eight games production reduction. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, associate editor in 5 days (four Milwau- Kayla Jentz was at a Professional Dairy Pro- kee Brewers games in ducers of Wisconsin annual business confer- four different parks and ence, where Gov. Scott Walker went to bat for four college games at Grand Canyon University the “Grow Wisconsin Dairy 30x20 Initiative,” a game plan designed to help the state’s dairy in Phoenix). producers increase milk production to 30 bil- During those games, I could never completely lion lbs. (about 15%) annually by 2020. With a short seventh-inning stretch to eliminate the need to I Dave Natzke is spend one night in my own bed and do some check my Android for national editorial laundry, I headed to Kansas City, for the Dairy director, DairyBusi- daily dairy headlines and Farmers of America (DFA) annual meeting. developments. Starting a ness Communi- During his address to members, president and few days before the fi rst cations. Contact him via e-mail: pitch until the week after CEO Rick Smith declared the co-op’s “fervent dnatzke@ I unpacked, the news and support” of the Dairy Security Act. Signifi cant dairybusiness.com. milk production growth, especially in the West, messages were about as was pointing the supply-demand trend in the inconsistent as spring training pitching. News wrong direction, and February 2012’s U.S. seemed to change by the inning. milk production growth of 4.3% (on a daily Just before we traded the 70°-80°s tem- basis) was a “recipe for a crisis.” The current peratures of Wisconsin for Arizona, Dairylea 2012 price outlook, combined with higher Cooperative CEO Greg Wickham described production costs, could lead to the “terrible dy- how the “yogurt phenomenon” was changing namics” of more milk production in a period of the dynamics of the Northeast dairy industry. negative producer margins. The result, he suggested, was that continued FYI Back in New York, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced the DAIRY (Dairy Augmentation for Increased Retail in Yogurt products) Act, allowing farmers a 50% bonus depreciation to buy cows. The bill is es- pecially designed to rally New York producers to supply more milk to the state’s yogurt indus- try. The New York Farm Bureau estimated the state’s producers must boost milk output 15% (1.9 billion lbs.) annually, to meet that demand. To extend the baseball theme, during all this time Congress continued to act like a hy- brid of Carlos Zambrano and Ozzie Guillen. Press conferences and news releases indicated the Dairy Security Act was either on its way to the federal dairy policy starting line-up, or caught in a run-down between second and third base, ready to be tagged out. Dairy policy is way beyond spring training, but 2012 sure is shaping up to be a season of strain, in more ways than one. Between all the hits, runs, outs, strikes, beer and peanuts, by far the most enter- taining (and I’d say inspiring) message I heard was presented at the DFA meeting by Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and president of Chobani, one of the hottest “teams” in the dairy industry. Since coming to the United States from Turkey as a student in 1994, his mix of innovation, risk-taking, humor, pragmatism and humility has created a $1 billion/year yogurt business that continues to grow. He even built a baseball fi eld in New York. If you ever get to hear him speak, by all means step up to the plate. ❐ ID-03RR Stretch Bore Liner The first and only Long Life Stretch Bore Liner on the market. The ID-03RR is guaranteed to exceed the service life of any other stretch bore liner by 30%. The ID-03RR will out perform Maximize profitability and udder health using your current the ID-03RR featuring Conewango’s newest brand in terms of proprietary rubber formulation. Healthy teat slippage, milk out, ends. 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