Dairy Farmer articles from July 2006

Dairy Farmer archives from July 2006

AFMP members press vote of no confidence.
July 17, 2006... Furious farmer members of the Arla Foods Milk Partnership - the dedicated milk supply group to Arla Foods - are taking their Board to task for agreeing to milk price cuts and the imposition of `impossibly confusing' supply contracts designed to...

COMMENT: It's a crazy world.(consumers)(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Peter Hollinshead, editor There's no denying that Arla's price cut has well and truly put the cat among the pigeons and further knocked confidence both in the industry at large and among its very own partnership members. The rot set in...

Rooker says that retailers could pay producers more.
July 17, 2006... New agriculture minister Jeff Rooker has reportedly got his knuckles rapped for outspoken remarks in support of dairy farmers. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 Farming Today at the Cornwall Show, he twice described Arla Food's chairman as...

Shock as Asda cuts cheese price.(retail cheese prices)(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... At the time of going to press news broke that Dairy Crest had dropped its liquid milk price by 0.75ppl. But there was even more concern over cheese prices, with ASDA boldly dropping its retail cheese prices by between 20 and 30 per cent, or...

Westbury Dairies to slash numbers.(for the foreseeable future)(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... THERE has been rumour and gossip for months over the future of Westbury Dairies. Now, though, following a strategy review by its co-op owners, the Board has instigated a number of staff and operational changes which will secure the plant "for...

Milk Link signs deal on haulage.
July 17, 2006... Milk Link has signed a five year haulage deal with its long-standing milk contractor Gregory Distribution Ltd. The deal will see Gregory purchase Milk Link's existing tanker fleet and take over full responsibility for the group's raw milk...

Wiseman's south-west move meets with mixed reception.
July 17, 2006... Good news for Wiseman and Milk Link, definitely, but perhaps not so good for other liquid processors in the south-west as competition in the liquid market will increase. That's the `official' verdict from Datum economists of the...

Farm assurance under new guise.(National Dairy Farm Assured Scheme)(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Dairy farmers can wave good-bye to the National Dairy Farm Assured Scheme: it is no more. But that doesn't mean farm assurance has gone too - it hasn't. The owners of NDFAS - Dairy UK, BCVA and NFU - have simply transferred the scheme to...

Asda yields to growing pressure to raise price.
July 17, 2006... Intense pressure on the major retailers this month is likely to have re- injected millions of pounds back into the industry with first Tesco and then ASDA lifting their retail milk prices. The move will bring the price back towards the level it...

Cowman comment: I am hoping we've cracked the heat detection job!
July 17, 2006... With very little time to spend observing cows for bulling activity, our Yorkshire correspondent Tim Gibson has adopted a completely new approach+. Well summer certainly seems to have arrived in the last few days and with the wet spring we...

Cowman comment: What is nightie clad woman doing in our village street.
July 17, 2006... With the demise of Taunton market, Sally Leaney sees this as yet another break in the link between town and country, but first she has to solve the mystery of this nightie clad person Taunton market is to move and become part of a new #5m...

Cowman comment: Flying dipstick was clue things weren't running right.
July 17, 2006... Despite some rather fundamental problems with his DB tractor fleet, Paul Higgins has still had to get his silage in and has now found time to turn his attention to shortcomings on the milk marketing front. For sale two David Brown tractors,...

Potter's View: Well, it's not all football out here you know.
July 17, 2006... In between the mad dashes from stadium to stadium, Ian Potter has been busy taking the German dairying pulse to see what they feel about the future of milk production in their country. During my first (painful!) week following St George's...

FERTILITY: Time bomb just waiting to go off.
July 17, 2006... In this, the seventh in our Intervet cut-out-and-keep fertility series, vet Tony Andrews looks at the impact of the recently discovered Neospora protozoan parasite on herd fertility. Neospora caninum is the most common cause of abortion in...

Conference: Reap benefits of cutting dry period to mere 35 days.(Paul Newland )
July 17, 2006... Speaking at the Dairy Farmer/Intervet Shepton Mallet mastitis day, LKL herd manager Paul Newland told the audience that shortening the dry period to a mere 35 days had generated almost #10,000 extra profit, reduced retained cleansings by half...

Breeding: Sorting out ratings to get best value for your money.
July 17, 2006... Following the latest proof run in May there has been a clutch of newly released sires on the market. Angela Rhodes takes a look at some of the best new bulls available. As a proven sire, Jocko Besne has been one of the outstanding bulls in...

Breeding: Semen World setting pace in type class.(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... For the more type conscious producers, Semen World has also returned two higher type lower production bulls. O-Bee Jonah comes with impressive credentials as he is half brother to leading early second crop proof US sire O-Bee Manfred Justice....

Fertility: Heat detection made simple.
July 17, 2006... Independent consultant and former head of agriculture at the University of Reading, Dr Dick Esslemont, once said: "The world will beat a path to the door of the man who develops automatic heat detection in cattle." Has the time come? Dairy...

Behaviour: Predict behaviour by taking note of what cows are telling you.
July 17, 2006... Reading the body language of dairy cows is a new Dutch management method called Cow Signals that is taking their dairying industry by storm and is now ready to hit the UK market. Geoff King reports. Your cows are trying to tell you...

Straw bedders: Make comfy beds fit for your cows.
July 17, 2006... Keeping cows clean is a problem which has traditionally incurred high labour inputs. Kingshay technical specialist, Dr Martin Yeates, gives advice on what to look out for in bedding materials and machines. If your bedding machine needs...

Workshop tips: How to keep the scourge of summer flies under control.
July 17, 2006... For most of the year cows and their keepers are untroubled by flies and it's easy to forget just what a menace they can be until the season starts again. All of a sudden it's a swish goes the tail, stomp goes the leg and plop goes the cluster...

Milk prices: AFMP members to cover cost of balancing supply.
July 17, 2006... As a result of the group now supplying 80% of Arla Foods' total milk requirement, with supplies from the co-ops ever reducing, members of the Arla Foods Milk Partnership have been told that in addition to a Jun'06 price cut relating to lower...

Milk prices: Dairy Crest cuts cheese milk price.(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Dairy Crest is to cut its Jun'06 price for milk into cheese by 0.25ppl at Davidstow and by 0.5ppl at both the Aspatria and Haverfordwest creameries. The company says the reduction which has reluctantly been agreed by the Dairy Crest Direct...

Milk prices: Grahams Dairies cuts 0.4ppl.
July 17, 2006... Scottish independent liquid processor, Grahams Dairies, Sterling, reduced its milk price by 0.4ppl from May'06 taking our price for them down from 19.9ppl to 19.5ppl. Copyright: CMP Information Ltd.

Milk prices: UK farm gate.(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Defra's average UK farm gate milk price (including retrospective bonuses) for Apr'06 of 17.52ppl was just 0.08ppl down on the Apr'05 average of 17.60ppl, while last reported average of 18.23ppl for Mar'06 has also been adjusted downwards by...

Milk prices: Dansco confirms milk price increase of 0.2ppl.(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Dansco Dairy Products has confirmed that it is to increase its direct supply producer milk price by 0.2ppl for Jun/Jul'06 milk supplies. The company says it has been able to increase the price, as a result of better than forecast returns...

Milk prices: United's auction declines 2ppl.(Brief article)
July 17, 2006... Average milk prices in United Dairy Farmers milk auction for Jun'06 continued their 2ppl slide compared with last year. With all contracts starting this month (July) the auction sold a total of 42mltrs for an average price of 17.61ppl, 2.06ppl...

Good Evans: Pssst have you heard the latest on our tanker driver?
July 17, 2006... social mill and no less so than in the countryside, but what's all this about his tanker driver getting a leg over? The hot news around here at the moment concerns the tanker driver. News, really good juicy, gossipy stuff, gets altered as...