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,
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RO 3 Ephrata. PA
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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
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