Digest Highlights

National Dairy Board nominees sought

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is accepting nominees for 12 dairy producer seats on the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board (NDB). Appointed members will serve three-year terms beginning Nov. 1, 2021, and ending Oct. 31, 2024.

Natzke dave
Dave Natzke
Editor / Progressive Dairy

The USDA is seeking nominees for two seats each in Region 2 (California and Hawaii) and Region 6 (Wisconsin), and one seat in: Region 1 (Alaska, Oregon and Washington), Region 4 (Arkansas, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas), Region 5 (Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota), Region 7 (Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska), Region 8 (Idaho), Region 9 (Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia), Region 11 (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) and Region 12 (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont).

Nominations are due May 31. Nomination forms and additional information are available on the NDB webpage.

FARM Program publishes 2021 Drug Residue Prevention Manual

The FARM Program published its 2021 Milk & Dairy Beef Drug Residue Prevention Reference Manual and accompanying pocket guide, an on-farm educational tool that promotes best management practices for administering treatment to dairy cattle. The annual publication also provides a comprehensive list of FDA-approved drugs for use in cattle with their associated milk and meat withdrawal times, along with milk and urine screening test information. The pocket guide offers a quick reference to these informational charts in a small, laminated, ring-bound booklet.

The manual serves as a resource for producers and veterinarians, and includes information on: residue prevention best practices, recordkeeping and herd health, drug administration, culling, residue testing, drug classes, and approved drugs and screening tests.

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DMI partnership seeks to tap into entrepreneurial network

Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) has entered into a partnership to access inventors and entrepreneurs to develop solutions for health and sustainability challenges.

Through the partnership with DMI, Venture Winston Grants has designed a competition where startup companies can apply for funding that will allow them to incorporate dairy into their business concepts in one of four areas:

  • Health and nutrition – dairy products and services tailored to a person’s body type, behavior and preferences
  • Biobased products – transforming byproducts from processing or waste into packaging, clothing or fuel
  • “Smart” communities of the future – dairy powering cities where people live within 15 minutes of their job and other critical needs
  • Regenerative agriculture – dairy farms as an environmental solution for other industries and sectors

Dwyer Williams, chief transformation officer for DMI, said the Venture Winston Grants partnership is one aspect of the broader checkoff-led future planning strategy, Dairy Transformation. Dairy Transformation encompasses about 100 people, including farmers and leaders from Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy companies, joining others outside of dairy and futurists to examine ways dairy can remain viable in the future.

“Our mission is to build a preferred future for dairy,” Williams said. “We want to disrupt the marketplace before we’re disrupted and that requires looking for unexpected partners outside of the dairy industry. This Venture Winston Grants partnership allows us to identify new ideas on what the next big thing is for dairy that will provide exciting opportunities for farmers.”

Karen Barnes, co-founder of Venture Winston Grants, expects to have the winners officially named in January 2022. From there, they are required to relocate at least 51% of their operations to the grant program’s base in North Carolina for a year. Dairy farmers and DMI also will be engaged with the entrepreneurs as they build out solutions. Once a technology is completed, it could take two to three years to have concepts commercialized and in the marketplace.

Dairy co-ops help rural America COVID-19 vaccination outreach

Dairy cooperatives and their farmer members are a key part of outreach efforts to medically underserved rural areas in the fight against the spread of COVID-19, according to the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF).

Those efforts have included putting together vaccination events for farmers, staff and farmworkers in the fields where they live and work. Participating co-ops have included California Dairies Inc.; Natural Prairie Dairy, a member of Select Milk Producers Inc.; Michigan Milk Producers Association; Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Association; Dairy Farmers of America; Lone Star Milk Producers; Northwest Dairy Association/Darigold; Prairie Farms; and Associated Milk Producers Inc.

NMPF is offering a COVID-19 vaccination resource toolkit, with materials in English and Spanish, to provide the essential dairy workforce with access to the information they need.

FACA recommends the USDA use pilot projects to build toward a ‘carbon bank’

The 70-member Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA) has created recommendations for how the USDA should approach a potential “carbon bank.” NMPF is a founding member of FACA.

A voluntary, USDA-led carbon bank is one policy mechanism being considered to help reduce barriers that producers and landowners face to participating in voluntary carbon markets and adopting climate-smart practices.

The FACA recommendations focus on the following four areas:

1. Scale climate solutions to help increase adoption of climate-smart practices that reduce, directly capture or sequester greenhouse gas emissions, and/or increase climate resilience

2. Remove barriers to adoption, making it easier for producers and landowners to adopt climate-smart practices

3. Improve carbon accounting standards to account for the carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reduction benefits of climate-smart agriculture

4. Ensure equitable opportunities for minority, socially disadvantaged and small-scale producers

According to FACA, information gained from the pilots will help the USDA gain long-term bipartisan congressional support and build confidence in how to verify the climate benefits delivered by specific practices and management approaches. The FACA is also working on additional in-depth tax credit policy recommendations.

Things you might have missed

  • The USDA announced May 2021 Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan interest rates. Information on individual loan types and interest rates are available here: farm operating, farm ownership and emergency loans.

  • The USDA will hold a virtual listening session for beginning farmers to learn how COVID-19 impacted their farming operations and to get their feedback on USDA assistance. The listening session will be held May 6, 1:30-3:30 p.m. (Eastern time). Registrants have the optional opportunity to provide written feedback.

  • Leaders of Wisconsin-based Dairy Business Association and Minnesota Milk Producers Association hosted a webinar to provide details of their “Class III Plus” proposal. (Read: Moving on Class I: Midwest groups unveil ’Class III Plus’ proposal.) A recorded video of the webinar is available here.  end mark