A22-Lanc*sfer Firming, Saturday, April 28,1990 /I FOCUS I 7 " -— —-— 1 D*, Hero , , . ... \ Call 1-800-DHI-TEST for service or information, improvement Association \ On The Record Dick Barth PA DHIA General Mgr. Probably the most disliked aspect of DHIA is the Official rules. Contrary to popular belief, however, the official rules are not primarily intended to provide a way to punish DHIA members, although that is sometimes the result of them. They are designed to provide a uniform standard for the collection, processing and use of DHIA record information across the United States. And in that regard, they are absolutely essential to the record keeping business. Also contrary to what some may think, management and staff do not make the rules, nor does USDA. They are made by dairy men leaders, producers just like you, who take their responsibility seriously and are dedicated to pro tecting your economic investment in DHIA records services. Many readers will be aware that Pennsylvania DHIA has taken a lough stand on this issue over the past four to five years and has been successful in ridding the association of significant fraudu lent activity by members. It’s been neither easy, nor cheap. Literally hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in staff time, legal fees and board expenses to assure that members’ records can be trusted. Hie bad news is the cost of doing it, but the good news is that we haven’t lost a single battle so far. It is essential work that must be on-going to be effective and affordable. Although we have made prog ress, we can and need to do better in this area. There are still prob lems with proper cow identifica- Average Farm Feed Costs For Handy Reference To help farmers across the state to have handy reference of commodity input costs in their feeding operations for DHIA record sheets or to develop livestock feed cost data, here’s this week’s average costs of various ingredients as compiled from regional reports across the state of Pennsylvania. Remember these are averages so you will need to adjust your figures up or down according to your location and the quality of your crop. Corn, No. 2y - 2.88 Wheat, No. 2 - 3.72 Barley, No. 3 - 2.14 Oats, No. 2 - 1.68 Soybeans, No. 1 - 5.64 New Ear Com, - 77.35 Alfalfa Hay - 130.00 Mixed Hay - 106.25 Timothy Hay - 103.00 tion, refusals to test, lack of coop eration by some members to pro vide needed information, and maybe even some fraud that has not yet been found. These prob lems continue because we cannot enforce the rules uniformly across Pennsylvania. WHY NOT? Local direction of DHIA super visors is the major reason for the problem. Some local boards are very responsible, but others, too many others, do not insist that their employees enforce all the rules all the time. They permit double standards to exist within circuits and within counties because they don’t pre vent supervisors from favoring some members over others by let ting some rule violations slip by. Over time, small rule infractions that could have been nipped in the bud grow into large problems that take extra effort to solve. I suppose you can’t blame folks for ducking the problem though. After all, it’s hard to blow the whistle on a neighbor, or a local board member, or a relative. Some progress is being made through communication and edu cation of supervisors and mem bers, but it’s extremely slow. Loc al boards are not skilled in hand ling these problems and board members turn over faster than they can be trained to provide the needed leadership on the issue. Supervisors also turn over faster than they can be trained (20-25% per year on average) and they often do not believe us when we say we will support them if they turn in a cheater. The trust level is poor all the way around. CAN WE IMPROVE? Yes, we can improve, but things have to change substantially to do it The key is to take local leader ship off the hot seat and to provide objective review of all DHIA field services in the state. Supervisors who do not have to fear recrimina tion for reporting a rule violation, or who are supported on the farm to correct minor violations will do a much better job when they see that support is real. Reorganization should have major impact on this problem. With supervisors responsible to state association employees, they will not need to wonder if they will be supported by their man agement staff. Furthermore, clear signals about expectations of supervisors in this area can be given without local boards in between that may encourage supervisors to ignore rules problems; either directly because they tell supervisors not to bother with them, or indirectly because board members have given mixed signals over the years with inconsistent treatment of rules problems. Life for the local board member should also improve in this area. They will not be asked to make decisions in areas they are not trained or experienced to handle. Therefore, local meetings will improve as board members are free to work on other problems that state staff need help with, like member communications and recruiting. But the best overall benefit can come from the avoidance of legal liability for local board members because they would no longer bear responsibility for decision making about rule infractions. This is a crucial issue for DHIA members and is the seventh major reason why reorganization is necessary if DHIA is to live up to its responsibility of providing the best services for the most reason able price. If you have missed any of the previous six reasons, give me a call at 1-800-DHI-TEST and I’ll send you a copy of the article that described it How Does Your STATE COLLEGE (Centre Co.) —This data is pulled from Pennsylvania DHIA’s mainframe computer each week. It is a one-week summary representing approximately one-fourth of the herds on test, as they are tested monthly. These data are valuable from a business man agement standpoint and can be used for compar ing your operations to the averages from almost 1,400 herds across the state. DHIA Averages for all herds processed between 4/10/90 and 4/17/90 Number of Herds Processed Number of Cows Processed Number of Cows Per Herd Milk Per Cow (Lbs) %-Fat Fat Per Cow (Lbs) %-Protein Protein Per Cow (Lbs) Average Days in Milk Per Cow •Value for CWT Milk(s) •Value for CWT Grain(s) •Value for CWT Hay(s) Milk Market News THOMAS JURCHAK Extension Dairy Agent Slow Down SCRANTON (Lackawanna Co.) After dramatic drops of 99 cents in January and $1.72 in February, many felt that the Min nesota - Wisconsin Price Series would continue its record break ing decline to match last year’s record breaking increases. Powder prices that fell from $1.50 in November to 86 cents in March weren’t noticed as much as cheese prices that dropped 29 cents, most of which came on the first Friday in February. Both of these contributed to the $2.71 drop in the M-W in two months. After the big drop in February, however, cheese prices stabilized at $1.26 and stayed there through March and powder prices held even with a slight increase in milk production in Wisconsin in February. As a result, the M-W dropped only 20 cents in March, the lowest in five years, from $12.22 to $12.02 but still $1.04 better than last year and $2.12 above the sup port price of $9.88 for manufac turing grade milk. Any drop in price is unwelcome to producers but the good news is that it was less than expected this month and may indicate the more normal adjustments that come at this time of the year. What hap pens next will depend on how fast and how much milk production increases this spring. The best news for the months ahead is a nine-cent increase in block cheese prices from $1.28 to $1.37 the first week of April. If this demand continues and powder markets remain firm, the record high drops in the M-W may be over. A lot depends on the size of the spring flush. Farm Price However, the full impact of the 99-cent drop in the M-W in Janu ary was felt in the March Class I price, in addition to a 27-cent drop in the Class II price in Order 2 last month. Add to that a 20-cent payment for the Louisville Plan and you get a 77-cent drop in the uniform or blend price from $14.22 to $13.45, before premiums for March in Order 2. That’s about 20 cents higher than expected and indicates that prices may not fall as low this spring. Also helping indirectly in Order 2 was the announcement by the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board to extend the $1.05 1988 disaster assistance premium on Class I milk to June 30, 1991. Fat And The Farm Bill Most of the attention given to Herd Compare? «Value for CWT Silage(s) •Value for Pasture Per Day(s) •Value for Milk Per Cow Per Year(s) •Feed Consumed Per Cow Per Year(Lbs) A; Grain B: Hay C: Silage D: Day Pasture •Feed Cost Per Cow Per Year(s) A: Grain B: Hay C: Silage D: Pasture •Total Feed Cost Per Cow Per Year(s) •Income Over Feed Costs Per Year(s) •Grain to Milk Ratio •Feed Cost Per CWT Milk(s) Avg Level For 836 SCC Herds •Member generated figure* 1,476 84.449 57.2 16,739 3.69 617 3.69 533 314 14.13 8.21 4.24 the growing Commodity Credit Corporation stocks of butter cen ters on changing the calculation of milk equivalents in CCC purch ases from a butterfat basis to something else like total solids or some dollar value. With so many dairy organizations asking for it, that may very well be part of the 1990 farm bill. However, it does nothing to correct the problem of surplus fat production and may do nothing to increase the support price, depending on where the “triggers” for CCC purchases and price cuts are set. Looking more closely at some of the farm bill proposals, you will find a number of suggestions; from tilting the CCC purchase price of butter so low that it will be more market competitive, to price reductions to producers who ship butterfat (in milk) in excess of some historical base on their farm, The end result would be literal ly a two-tier price for butterfat one price for the base pounds and another for the excess pounds. However, before you start a "race for base” on butterfat, real ize that these are only proposals at this time and the “triggers” of CCC butter purchases to start such a program vary from six percent over the market demand for butter to six billion pounds of milk equi valent in CCC purchases. Last week the House Subcom mittee approved a fat reduction program paid for by producers and triggered at CCC purchases of five billion pounds of milk equivalent. They also included a two-tier inventory management program when CCC purchases exceed seven billion pounds and approved a price support floor of $10.60 through 1995. Remember, however, that this was only the proposal of the House Subcommittee which is far from the final vote of Congress where the farm bill will be decided. What Problem? Before you start worrying that you will be asked to produce skim milk in the future, you should get some perspective on the problem. The national average for butter fat is 3.67 and it has been calcu lated that if it had been 3.5 there never would have been any purch ases of butter by CCC last year. We’re not talking large drops in butterfat test but only about a tenth of one percent. Yes, I know that after generations of trying to keep butterfat tests up even a lowering of one point seems to be a radical change. However, you may find that (Turn to Pago A 24) 1.49 .30 2,365 6,785 2,737 14,500 62 557 116 216 19 909 1,456 1:2.4 5.43 309,665
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