CWT Accepts Fraction Of Buyout Bids ARLINGTON, Va. The national Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program has received a total of 2,552 bids for its herd buyout and reduced production marketing programs in the effort to reduce domestic milk supply and raise farm milk prices. As of the second week in November, 376 of the 2,522 bids were accepted, CWT reported on its Website, http://www.cwt.coop/index.html. CWT reported that, by Nov. 12, it had accepted 299 bids for its herd buyout program. Of those herds, 21 came from the Northeast region, including Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York. The average accepted bid was $4 per hun dredweight of milk production. CWT reported 32,734 cows had been sent to market through the program as of Nov. 12. The retired herds represent 608 million pounds of annual milk production. In the reduced production marketing program, CWT has accepted 77 bids representing 88 million pounds of milk. The average accepted bid was $4.07 per hundredweight. CWT’s funding comes from farmers in partici pating co-ops who are investing 5 cents per hun dredweight to pay for its programs. CWT’s goal is to increase farm milk prices cents per hundredweight by decreasing the national milk supply by 1.2 billion pounds by mid-2004. Beside the herd buyout and reduced production marketing programs, CWT also aims to increase ex ports of cheese and butterfat. CWT is operated within the structure of the Na tional Milk Producers Federation, the membership organization for America’s largest dairy coopera tives. Dairy One Technicians Complete Training ITHACA, N.Y. Dairy One farm service techni cians that have completed at least a month working in their circuit recently attended “school”. Six technicians met at the Ithaca Dairy One office to become more familiar with the Dairy One sup port network and enhance their knowledge of soft ware and customer care. Pennsylvania technicians who completed the three-day training included Bruce Akers, Hamburg; Laina Davison, Mount Bethel; and Dave Kennedy, Honesdale. Also attending the training were Dairy One tech nicians from Connecticut and Indiana.
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