by Hoard's Dairyman staff One of the U.S.'s most prominent dairymen looked into his renewable crystal ball. Mike McCloskey, D.V.M., may be a name you are familiar with. Or another name, Fair Oaks Farms,...
Fifty-four hundred miles is practically next door when the topic is the 2012 U.S. ethanol market outlook. That's roughly the distance from Iowa, the largest corn-producing state in the U.S., to Brazil,...
Travel the I-29 corridor in eastern South Dakota and you will have found the heart of the state's population. Intermingled along this same stretch of land are the vast majority of the state's dairy cattle...
"Agriculture has been insulated from the forces battering the general economy. I expect that to continue in the coming year," says the University of Wisconsin Madison's economist Bruce Jones at the University's...
Betty Thompson grew up on a Jersey farm in Oklahoma. Miss Thompson earned the title of Miss Oklahoma several months ago and competed this weekend in the Miss America competition. She is a senior at Oklahoma...
USDA projected a larger-than-expected U.S. corn and soybean crop in their year-end "Crop Production 2011 Summary" released early Thursday. Most market analysts had anticipated that final 2011 corn estimates...
Twenty years ago, a room full of farmers talking about land prices wouldn't have surprised anyone. But what about a room full of investors? On November 15, we attended the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's...
Too cheap for too long, dairy producers have tended to take energy costs for granted. But no more. If the U.S. gas shortages of 1973 and 1979 were warnings of things to come, $4 diesel is proof that the...
Last week, I attended the National Holstein Convention in Virginia, and so did over 1,000 Holstein enthusiasts from across the United States. The four-day event was full of meetings, tours, junior competitions,...
We've talked about it before (see our blog, Wars we wage in dairy and agriculture and our editorial from the June 2011 issue, Keep chocolate milk in schools), but, like heat in the summer, the issue of...
Every day a milk truck comes to Shoestring Dairy. We exchange our normal "G'day Mate," then the friendly man hooks up the hose and pumps our cows' hard work from our tank into the truck. He prints off...
It may not seem like spring weather, but spring is here! That means it's time to clean, replace, and check on your equipment and facilities. David Bray at the University of Florida provided several items...
We are globally connected. The earthquake, tsunami, and pending nuclear crisis in Japan have reminded us of that. We first need to reflect and be thankful for our own families and loved ones as we watch...
I had a pretty expensive week. First I went to the co-op and picked up new tires for the truck. Then, I went to the dentist for my new crown. Finally, I filled up my truck with fuel! That joke, or lack...
Imagine a world where the manure check equals the milk check. No one is saying it is possible, but there is hope on the horizon for profiting from the waste end of the cow, and some are doing it already....
The triple combination of sedentary technology such as video games and the internet, reduced physical activity, and eating poor diets are just some of the contributing factors causing over one-third of...
It's just one state and it may not reflect what is happening across the rest of U.S. agriculture, but it's still good news in an industry that can certainly use some: Farmland values in Indiana are shooting...
Rising corn prices mean higher feed bills for dairy producers, which is why a recent forecast about global oil demand points to the possibility of higher milk production costs in 2011. Connecting the dots...
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate approved (81 to 19) the big tax package that extends Bush-era tax rates and includes a number of other measures. One of those measures would extend the Volumetric Ethanol Excise...
