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.