&—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 6,1971
Protein Milk Pricing System Is Used
Editor’s Note: The idea of a
new system for pricing milk has
been periodically proposed to the
dairy industry. The following is
portions of an article by the
National Farmers Organization
on a price system based on
protein content. It was forwarded
by Leland S. Stanford.
Cletus and Steve Timmerman,
a father-and-son team from
Dickeyville, Wis., are taking
NFO’s story of protein pricing of
milk to farmers in America’s
Dairyland
They equipped a second-hand
panel truck as a mobile lab,
undoubtedly the nation’s first
milk protein tester-on-wheels.
And they’re selling a protein
approach that’s working in NFO
contracts in the West.
It’s been a sideline since last
spring to their main job of ser
ving members marketing milk
through the Dickeyville
reload managed by Cletus. This
is in Grant County, ranked 10th
on the list of the nation’s milk
producing counties.
The unusual mobile laboratory
is good advertising for NFO’s
fast-growing reload system in
Wisconsin.
Farm Progress Days
Probably the most interesting
trip with the small lab was to
Farm Progress Days at West
Salem near LaCrosse, where
Steve set it up and explained
protein pricing to visitors. He ran
several dozen samples a day to
show how the test works.
He said dairy farmer interest
in protein testing was tremen
dous, among members and non
members alike. City people, too,
Manor Young Farmers
Set Nutrition Courses
The Manor Young Farmers
will hold four animal nutrition
courses this month Starting at
7-30 p.m., the meetings will be
held November 9,11,16, and 18 in
the Penn Manor vo ag room.
Mike Burton, Penn Manor vo
ag teacher, will be in charge of
three of the meetings.
Dr Emett I. Robertson,
nutritionist John W. Eshelman &
Sons feed company, will speak on
“The Importance of Minerals” at
the November 16 meeting.
C. 0. NOLI
BIRD-IN-HAND
stopped by the talk about the
need for -more emphasis on
protein content of milk.
Steve, a licensed milk tester,
says the simple test for protein
takes about the same amount of
time as testing for butterfat. He
draws off a small amount of milk
with a syringe, puts it in a small
bottle, adds an orange reagent
dye to bind the protein, and
shakes it up.
Then the sample is run through
a special filter into a thin glass
container, a photo cell shoots a
light through it, and a small
gauge provides a light tran
smission reading That reading is
quickly converted with stan
dardized chart to percent of
protein content
“We’re still selling milk the
ancient way,” Steve notes.
“Farmers realize this and never
argue that the protein way isn’t
the right way to do it.”
Cletus said Norbert Connors, a
national director from Viroqua,
Wis., first introduced he and his
son to the protein pricing con
cept Connors introduced them to
Roy Brog, the man who
developed the protein pricing
concept for NFO. The idea for the
testing van followed.
Basing milk prices on both
butterfat and protein content, a
much-needed change in the dairy
industry, is sure to come even
tually in Wisconsin they believe.
It is getting its biggest push now
from contracts negotiated by
NFO producers in Utah, Idaho
and Wyoming.
They ship milk under contracts
paying an additional nine cents
for each one-tenth of a per cent
above a 3.2 per cent protein base.
What NFO says, in effect, is that
there’s more value in milk than
butterfat and farmers ought to
get paid for it.
NFO members have had the
expert assistance of Brog and
Dairy Monitoring of America m
developing a protein pricing
system. His testing procedure,
available to NFO dairy
bargainers, is written into NFO
protein-based supply contracts.
LOCAL DISTRIBUTOR
Met Roy Brog
Protein Contracts
Phone Lane. 397-0751
Brog’s system measures
protein content in both solid and
fluid dairy products. He has
found that the protein-fat milk
pricing method is capable of
identifying over 99 per cent of the
true value of milk compared with
only 78.6 per cent for the present
fat-hundredweight scheme
“A fat-protein pricing system”
he says, “has the capability of
aligning the value of fat and
protein in the producer milk with
the value of these two com
ponents in the consumer
packaged dairy products.”
Ed Graf, national director of
the Dairy Department, points out
that the industry breeds cattle to
produce more butterfat and then,
in the next breath, they tell you
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