OUT WITH A BANG You certainly slammed the door on 1980 with a bang when you increased your December shipments of milk to Order 2 handlers by four nercent over November and settled for ten cents less than your milk check You got a better deal when compared to December, 1979. In December 1980 you produced five per cent more milk than a year ago and got a price ten percent higher That’s what makes it tough to sell supply management to producers. But these averages don’t work the same in all herds. It was a good deal if the extra five percent didn’t cost much more to produce than the other ninety-five It’s called diminishing returns GIVE YOUR COWS AT HOME A FLUFFY BED LIKE THE FARM SHOW CATTLE HAD HI HARRISBURG To help livestock exhibitors get ready tor the show, U S Farm Systems of Pennsylvania donated the services of a tough-built, red bedding chopper in the barns of the Penn sylvania Farm Show complex, this week Tim Pierce, who operated the gas engine chopper was a popular fellow for several days before the show Livestock exhibitors lined up to have the working red chopper come to their stalls to turn bales of straw into fluffy, soft, short-cut bedding worthy of the prize show animals to be stabled there for a week As you know, the Farm Show is a fun time to show off prize animals and red bedding choppers But the real test comes back on the farm, 365 days a year with cows and bedding choppers that never get to the show That’s where the tough-built, red bedding chopper really shows off Back on the farm Working day in and day out For the farmer, no more straw chunks to shade by hand No more sawdust to shovel Sawdust that probably holds mastitus bacteria The Milk Check TOM JURCHAK County Agent every dairyman has to know where it is for his own herd. Efficient milk production is still the way to profits and they aren’t guaranteed for everyone even if you have a built in inflation fighter in the price support program. One thing you can count on is that your price has passed its peak for this winter. If you aren’t making ends meet now, you better plan some belt tightening for 1981 CLOSER LOOK Let’s take a closer look and see how the members stack up for December. The uniform price in Order 2 was $13.44 ten cents less than November but $1.19 more than a year ago. You shipped over a million pounds a day more than last month, but you sold only about 200,000 pounds a day more for Class I use. This dropped your utilization 1.3 percent to 45.9 which, in my book, is a record low for December m Order 2. In addition to a lower Class I utilization for the month, you also had to pay back from the Louisville Plan which was worth over 28 cents a hundred in November. On the plus side you had higher class prices than in November thanks to the price support program. In fact, you had a whop ping 35 cent jump in the Class I price of $l4 67 that tracts directly back to the October 1 increase in the Mmnesota-Wisconsm price that ushered in the new marketing year for the Commodity Credit Cor poration You also had a nine cent increase in the Class II price from last month thanks again to the CCC That nine cent increase in the Class II price to $12.67 is expected to be typical of what you might expect in the M-W in the months ahead So don’t look for more 35 cent giant steps before April. Be prepared for only those nine cent baby steps. under your cows. Just throw a bale of straw, corn stalks or old hay into the red bedding chopper and quietly blow fluffy, liquid obsorbant bedding under your cows as you move the chopper down the row of tie or free stalls Give your cows at home a fluffy bed You don't need to tell 'em you got the idea from the comfortable prize cows and the working red bedding chopper showing off in Harrisburg. Write or call today U S Farm Systems of Pennsylvania 4070 Blue Bail Road Nottingham, PA 19362 Phone: (301) 398-2948 ■ I c farm ■ IN SYSTEMS of Pennsylvania Your Tough Built Red Bedding Chopper Distributor CLOSE TO THE CEILING The fact is that butter, powder and cheese prices aren’t ail that far away from their support prices right now. Those support prices are the ceiling of what CCC can pay to remove those products from the market. The support prices are $1.49 a pound for butter; 94 cents for powder and $1,395 for cheese. December mid month averages at Chicago were $1,477 for butter (only 1 3 cents below support); 936 cents for powder (off only four tenths of a cent) and $1 40 for cheese (a half cent over support). So it appears that even nine cent increases in the M- W may look good compared to what you get until April 1 when the support price may be adjusted with the Parity Index Of course, the other half of the story is that the average price for manufacturing grade milk in December was only $12.38 instead of the support price of $12.80 that it’s supposed to be That’s 42 cents less than the M-W price which determines your class prices in Federal Orders. In other words, the December M-W was $12.61. Lancaster Farming, Saturday, January 24,1981—A15 But it might have been around $13.00 if the CCC purchases had moved the manufacturing grade price up closer to the support level of $12.80. The reason for the dif ference, as I have said before, is the rapidly in creasing supply of milk coming off your farms and a defect in determining the CCC purchase prices of butter, powder and cheese made from $12.80 milk that doesn’t allow enough margin for the cost of manufac turing the products. What it all boils down to is you’re getting a support price closer to 75 percent of parity than the 80 percent we keep talking about While farm organizations and legislators talk about maintaining the 80 percent minimum beyond Sep tember of this year, other changes will have to be made in the program before you get it However, you’ll still have to defend the spending of $1.5 billion or more to get it next year. That may be the hardest part after two years of record high production. MORE OF THE SAME Looking ahead into the Bucks County to talk pond management KING OF PRUSSIA - The Bucks County Extension Service will be sponsoring a Pond Management Meeting on Thursday, February 19, 1981 at the Holiday Inn, King of Prussia, 9am to 4 30 p.m. Program topics include pond construction and maintenance, fish pond management, aquatic weed identification, aquatic herbicide application per mits; aquatic herbicides, Z^\QD=C3 THE&TIULO2BWB. THEPROFESSIONfILSfIWFOR HOMEOWNERS. This is the best engineered chain saw ever made for the homeowner who’s serious about cutting A high performance mid size saw with all the design integrity of the biggest professional saws in the world And Stihl makes those too TAKE ONE HOME. STML: TktwwUslufedstll^duuasni. STOLTZFUS WOODWORK ROGap PA Box 183 1 Mile North Rt 197 From Gap WES STAUFFER SMALL ENGINES RO 3 Ephrata. PA Phona (717) 733 9174 Ephrata Exit New Rt 222 V? Mile West on Rt 322 Turn left unto Pleasant Valley Rd MARTIN HARDWARE & EQUIPMENT CO. Rt 501 11/zl l/ z Miles South of Schacff erst own PA Phone 717 949-6*17 new year the crystal ball shows more of the same but not quite as much. You’ll continue to have increases in production but instead of the four percent you had last year it will probably be around two percent. With a record high of 128 billion pounds in 1980 even a two per cent increase gives you back to back records in production. Production per cow went up three percent in 1980. It will be more like two percent ml9Bl. Feed prices will go up faster than milk prices as they did the last half of 1980 so you will tend to use less. Cow numbers will continue to increase because you kept a lot of heifers last year and beef prices aren’t getting many cows out of the barn. You took in over $l6 billion last year. That should go up nearly 15 percent in 1981 but your bank account won’t look quite as good. Still, dairying is one of the most profitable farm en terprises and things will have to get a lot worse before many producers cut back but even that could happen in 1981. discussion periods; and aquatic pest update training. This meeting will serve to update private pesticide applicators and commercial applicators in Category 9 - Aquatic Pests. Bring your license to the meeting. If you would like to register, please contact Scott Guiser, County Agent, Bucks County Cooperative Extension Service, Neshammy Manor Center, Doylestown, PA 18901, 215/343-2800. The cost of the program is $5. This meeting is similar to the one held in Berks County in June of 1980 t * TIHL I a* > J FREE DEMONSTRATION Cham Saw - Concrete & Metal Saw Rentals A & B SALES & SERVICE 2 Miles South of Rt 23 Akmf 772 Thru Monterey RDI Ronks PA NORMAN H. ZIMMERMAN Myerstown, RO 2 Phone (717) *66-4495 Vi mite west Myerstown West Mam St
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