A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 14, 2002
Milk Production Must Keep Up With Burgeoning World Demand
(Continued from Page A 1)
New Zealand and Australia,
noted Wilson, are very efficient
dairy producers, but produce
only 4 percent of the world’s milk
supply. Eastern Europe produces
18 percent of the world's supply.
China, with almost five times die
population of the U.S., has a per
capita milk consumption of 15
pounds with a consumption of
6,700 metric tons of cheese, or
less than one pound per capita
(compared to 30 pounds per per
son of consumption in the U.S.)
There are 4.2 million dairy cows
in China, but production per cow
is low, at 3,500 pounds per cow
per year.
India is the largest dairy pro
ducer in the world, with 65 mil
lion breeding age dairy animals,
but 40 million of them are buffa
lo. Average farm herd size is two.
The bottom line, noted Wilson:
the U.S. needs to increase milk
production substantially in the
next 10 years. By the year 2013,
dairy farms need to produce 165
billion pounds per year (an in
crease of about 7 billion pounds
between now and then).
Wilson noted we can get to
that position with 60,000 dairies
at 150 cows average per farm
Doug Wilson, Cooperative Resources
International, left, spoke at the dairy
banquet Wednesday evening. At right is
Gary Heckman, vice president of the
Pennsylvania Dairy Stakeholders. Photo
by Andy Andrews, editor
Cornell Enology
Lab Hires First
Extension Educator
GENEVA, N.Y. Hans Justrich brought his
family about 4,000 miles from their home in
Malans, Switzerland, to Geneva, N.Y., to be
come Cornell University’s first extension enolog
ist. In his words: “I needed a challenge.”
For the second-generation winemaker who
began working in Thomas Henick-Kling’s lab at
the New York State Agricultural Experiment
Station in Geneva, N.Y., July 25, that challenge
is embodied in a new country, new people, new
grape varieties, and a new climate.
“We’re lucky to find someone with his exper
tise and experience,” said enologist Henick-
Kling, who directs the Vinification and Brewing
Technology Lab where Justrich will also be
working. “Hans has a wonderful background in
wine making, experience with small and large
wineries, and familiarity with the varieties of
grapes that are economically important to New
York.”
Justrich’s enthusiasm for his work is readily
apparent. “Wine making is great it’s an art
and a way of life,” he said. “Every year is a new
challenge and a new experience.”
This attitude, according to Ben Gavitt, a re
search support specialist in Henick-Kling’s lab
who manages the New York State Wine Analyti
cal Lab, makes Justrich well suited to the posi
tion. Gavitt will be working closely with Justrich
to test samples brought in by New York wine
ries.
Before coming to Cornell, Justrich consulted
with grape growers and wine makers in Grau
bunden for 18 years, disseminating information
and organizing wine tastings and workshops.
Previous to that, he worked for a research sta
tion in plant pathology in Zurich, Switzerland,
and at a winery in California. He earned his ad
vanced degree from the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology-Zurich in 1979.
producing 18,250 pounds per
cow, or 37,000 dairies at 245 cows
per dairy producing 18,250
pounds per cow. More likely, ! n
Wilson’s estimation, we can do so
with 45,000 farms with 200 cows
each on average producing
18,250 pounds per cow.
In 2013, there will be about
nine million dairy cows in the
U.S., producing a stable supply of
an additional 7 billion pounds of
milk.
Producers will do this despite a
lot of factors, but those issues will
be dairy herd size-neutral, pro
ducer-age neutral, and geograph
ically neutral, Wilson noted.
“Are you aware that there are
more people in our prisons than
on our farms?” Wilson said.
“You are outnumbered by the
people in our prisons. It’s a re
minder that no one else is going
to take care of us.”
All this is going to happen
within a time of stark consolida
tion of many industries, includ
ing food retail.
Wilson pointed out that, in
1997, 10 major food retailers ac
counted for 35 percent of all gro
cery sales in the U.S. In 2007, the
same 10 major retailers will rep
resent 70 percent of all groceries
sold in the U.S. “When they
speak, we will listen,” Wilson
said.
Wilson noted that when the
U.S. placed a man on the moon
in July 1969, there were 566,000
dairy producers in the country
averaging 19.8 cows per farm. In
1982, there were fewer dairy pro
ducers, at 278,000 all told, with
an average of 39 cows per farm.
In 1993, the farm numbers de
creased even more as the herd
size rose, down to 162,000 pro
ducers but with 59 cows per farm
on average. In 2002, there are
74,000 dairy producers in the
U.S., and by 2013, Wilson proj
ects there will be about 45,000
producers.
Yet production numbers are
actually greater from the nine
million cows today compared to
the 24 million cows in the U.S. 60
years ago.
And “purchase-product work
ing time” has decreased. To earn
enough money to purchase a
half-gallon of milk in 1919, the
average person would have to
work 39 minutes. In 1950, that
number fell to 16 minutes. In
2002, the average U.S. citizen
worked only seven minutes to
buy a half-gallon of milk.
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Allyn Lamb, AgChoice Farm Credit, far left, moderates
a panel on the position of the Northeast dairy industry
with Don Merrigan, Wakefern Food Corp./Readington
Farms, Elizabeth, N.J.; Quinten Frey, Turkey Hill Dairy,
Inc., Conestoga; Dave Hileman, Hilecrest Farms, Tyrone;
and Rick Smith, CEO of Dairylea Cooperative, Syracuse,
N.Y. Photo by Andy Andrews, editor
“We have to leam to manage
the future and not have the fu
ture manage us,” Wilson said.
Producers must become motiva
tors for their team and leam to be
proactive. We also must leam to
beef up our research and devel-
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opment on new dairy products,
according to Wilson.
Wilson said that $25 million is
spent in the U.S. on research and
development. “Tiny New Zea-
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(Turn to Page A 27)
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