DairyLine’s parent company, DairyBusiness Communications, in January, launched Say Cheese magazine. Editor Pat Dailey talked about its goals in Wednesday’s broadcast. Short answer, said Dailey, is to sell more cheese.  

“We want to educate consumers and readers about the many different kinds of cheese that are available, how to use them, how to enjoy them and integrate them into their lives so that they understand how to navigate the cheese counter much more effectively.” 

The magazine features a lot of educational material, according to Dailey, and introduces them to new cheeses, how cook with them, and how to pair them with different accompaniments. 

Say Cheese started in California with 50-55,000 copies and the reception has been so strong, she said, that the third issue, coming in July, will go to Oregon and Washington, and the January issue will be expanded to the East Coast. 

Say Cheese is targeted to consumers but Dailey is quick to point out that it came about from discussions with dairy farmers. Many farmers do farmstead cheese themselves, she said, or are working with cheese makers and manufacturers that purchase their milk, and the farmers felt that greater education about cheese was needed. For more information, log on to http://saycheesemedia.com.

The June Milk-Feed Price Ratio is 2.33, up from May’s revised estimate of 2.19, according to USDA’s “Ag Prices” report issued Tuesday, and compares to 1.45 in June of 2009. 

The All Milk Price was estimated at $15.80 per hundredweight, up 70 cents from last month’s estimate, and $4.50 above a year ago. Corn averaged $3.38 per bushel, down a dime from May, and 63 cents below a year ago. The soybean price, at $9.39 per bushel, was down two cents from May, and $2.01 below a year ago. Alfalfa baled hay was $119.00 per ton, down $2.00 from May, and $9.00 below a year ago.

The cash block cheese market gave back all of Friday gain in CME trading the last Monday of June Dairy month. The barrel gave up most of Friday’s jump however butter held at an amazing $1.72.

The University of Wisconsin’s Dr. Brian Gould said in Tuesday’s DairyLine that the butter market is anticipating improved exports and given the “normal level of stocks,” any increase in butter exports is “really going to have a positive impact on prices,” and the upward trend since May is indicative of that.

Cheese prices are reacting the year over year increases in milk production, according to Gould, and the “exceedingly high stocks of cheese.”

Gould also commented on Friday’s Department of Justice/USDA workshop on competition and regulatory issues in the dairy industry. He said a primary concern of a lot of the attendees was a possible change in the Capper-Volstad act which exempts cooperatives from antitrust litigation. The message that came out from the workshop, he said, was that there would not be any changes.

The workshop featured three panels, one dealing with the state of the industry, one with market consolidation, and one on price and market transparency. Gould said it was a packed house and remains to be seen whether anything of substance will come of it.

He expressed concern in that most of the comments that were made in the two public comment periods were centered on milk pricing, which was really not the focus of the workshop.

Dairy farmers, processors, and lawmakers met in Madison June 25 for a Department of Justice/USDA workshop on competition and regulatory issues in the dairy industry. It was the third in a series but focused on dairy. 

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged the financial struggle in rural America, particularly among dairy farmers, and emphasized the importance of cooperatives in agriculture and said the purpose of the workshop was not to weaken cooperatives. 

Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General, said they are working to improve competitiveness and is mindful of concern in the industry over competitiveness at the farm as well as at retail and foodservice, including school milk. 

Dairy Profit Weekly’s Dave Natzke reported that a lawmaker and producer panel dealt with market transparency as one of the issues in the morning session. Criticism was voiced of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange for being too thinly traded and easily manipulated.

The farmer’s share of the retail dollar was also raised, Natzke reported, as being squeezed by large retailers plus concentration and consolidation among large processors. 

Wisconsin’s two Democratic Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold as well as Secretary Vilsack and Secretary Varney said the CME would likely be a focus of an investigation.  

Several farmers pointed to the CME as the reason for the severe market volatility in cheese which in turns affects all milk prices. There was also concern voiced regarding trading against interest, Natzke said, where organizations bought cheese at low prices on the CME and then sold it back on the CME at a higher price, effectively keeping a lid on prices.

With U.S. milk production on the rise and more than a billion pounds of cheese in storage, attention remains on a controversial topic in the dairy industry, establishing supply-demand balance controls, according to Dairy Profit Weekly editor Dave Natzke in Friday’s DairyLine.

Earlier this month National Milk proposed sweeping changes to federal dairy policy, and one of the most controversial components is the Dairy Market Stabilization Program. Simply put, the plan deducts money from a dairy farmer’s milk check if national average income margins fall below trigger levels. Only dairy farmers who produce more their designated milk base would pay the deduction, getting a signal to cut the milk supply.

Connie Tipton, head of the nation’s dairy processor organization, vowed to fight any proposals establishing supply management controls, saying a mandated program would raise consumer prices, decrease dairy product demand, encourage non-dairy substitutes in manufacturing, and hurt U.S. dairy exports.

That drew outrage from Rob Vandenheuvel, general manager of California’s Milk Producers Council, a dairy farmer organization which been promoting a supply-demand balancing program of its own as a means to help financially struggling dairy farmers. Another organization promoting its own supply management plan, Holstein USA, is holding its annual convention in Minnesota this weekend. One of the topics will likely be whether to endorse National Milk’s proposal.

Natzke went on to report on another controversial topic, this one related to dairy feed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7 to 1 that a California federal judge went too far when he imposed a nationwide ban on planting genetically engineered alfalfa seed, known as Roundup Ready alfalfa.

USDA initially approved the seed in 2005, but U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer issued the ban, ordering the agency to conduct a more extensive environmental impact study of the herbicide-resistant seed. USDA issued a draft environmental impact statement last November, and is expected to take final action next spring, which could pave the way for farmers to plant the seed next growing season.

June 25 is the deadline for CWT members to submit a bid if they want to participate in the current herd retirement program. National Milk’s Chris Galen said in Thursday’s broadcast that “this is the 10th time that we have been down this road,” the first one running in the summer of 2003.

He said it will be interesting to see how bids are submitted as there has been a large number of phone calls and e-mails but, as is typical, most bids do not come in until just before the deadline or after it.

The maximum bid is $3.75 per hundredweight, which is low, Galen admitted, but “reflects the real world price of cows. He quickly added that, with beef prices being what they are, “producers on an average basis will get a good deal on their cows because they also keep the beef value,” (if their CWT bid is accepted).

There is no bred heifer program this time around, according to Galen, and the timing is important because of the low milk prices but “the decline in the dairy herd leveled off at the beginning of 2010 and has started to creep back up so we‘re hoping this will help push cow numbers back in a negative direction which we think will be ultimately positive for milk prices the rest of this year.”

Will this be the final CWT herd removal? Galen said that depends on what the members want to do with the program but “We do think that this is the right time to use this important tool because it has had a positive impact on prices dating back to 2003.”

State Beef Council check off dollars help add value to beef and dairy farmers and help drive consumer demand for beef through events like the “Boilermaker” event in Utica, New York, in July, according to Jean O’Toole, New York Beef Industry Council director of retail, foodservice, and consumer events.”

Jean O'Toole [ 2:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Speaking in Wednesday’s DairyLine, O’Toole said the “Boilermaker” includes a 15K road race, the largest in the U.S., a 5K run, a three milk walk, and a kid’s run and beef is involved in a “massive way.” She reported that they have a large tent with the theme “Beef Up Your Health” which offers glucose and blood pressure testing, they have the “Beef It’s What’s For Dinner culinary stage to teach attendees how to cook beef properly, a “Beef Booth,” and a “Power of Protein challenge.”

Beef, veal, and dairy producers are competing in the ZIP team, which stands for zinc, iron, and protein. The local dairy princess is involved as Upstate Dairy donated chocolate milk to the kid’s run so they have a “nice recovery drink,” one of Chocolate milk’s many attributes, and the local Beef Council dietician is there for nutrition consulting.

The event draws radio, newsprint, and TV coverage and “When you have 100 runners wearing our “Team ZIP” shirts, you get the media’s attention.” The shirts read, “Beef, It’s What’s For Dinner.”

May butter stocks totaled 211.5 million pounds, up 5.2 million pounds or 3 percent from April but 41.8 million pounds or 16 percent below May 2009, according to preliminary data in the Agriculture Department’s latest Cold Storage report issued this afternoon. April butter stocks were revised down nearly 1.3 million pounds from last month’s estimate.

The May American cheese inventory, at 617.2 million pounds, was up 7.7 million pounds or 1 percent from April and 31.1 million pounds or 5 percent above a year ago. April revised estimates were lowered nearly 4.5 million pounds.

Total cheese stocks amounted to over 1.018 billion pounds, up 10.4 million pounds or 1 percent from April and 48.4 million pounds or 5 percent above a year ago.

Monday’s cash block cheese market gave back Friday’s half-cent increase and the barrels were unchanged prompting analyst Mary Ledman, Principal of Keough Ledman and Associates Incorporated in Libertyville, Illinois, to predict sideway trading for this week’s cheese market until we see a down tick in milk production. 

She reported that there is a strong flush in the Midwest, pointing to Friday’s preliminary data showing Wisconsin up 5.8 percent in May, Minnesota up 3.8 percent, Michigan up 4.4 percent. She said we have to see a moderation in the growth of milk production before we’ll see any clear upward signals on cheese prices. 

Friday’s reported increase in milk output was not as much as many had expected however Ledman pointed to USDA revisions on March cow numbers which added about 6,000 head to the herd and USDA’s revisions have tended to be increases and not decreases, she said. 

“There’s plenty of milk in most areas of the country,” Ledman said, and a considerable amount of condensed skim in the marketplace and she believes it’s being priced very competitively against nonfat dry milk powder and resulting in less cream being available in the marketplace and enhancing butter prices. 

The cash butter price jumped a penny and three quarters Monday. She attributed that to seasonally low component levels in milk. Some believe that feed is having a negative impact as well but this is also the seasonal high demand period for butterfat and the increased sales of condensed skim is shorting the amount of cream available for the churns as well.

U.S. dairy exports are strong again and April data was reported in Monday’s “DMI Update” by the U.S. Dairy Export Council’s Margaret Speich. Speich reported that milk powder, whey proteins, cheese, butterfat and lactose exports posted gains over a year ago.  

April exports were valued at $291 million, up 68 percent from a year ago, according to Speich, the highest figure (on a daily average basis) since September 2008. Looking more broadly, at the first four months, exports were valued at $1 billion, up 52 percent, she said. 

On a product basis, exports of milk powder remained strong in April, up 51 percent in volume. Exports of whey proteins in April were the highest in two and a half years, principally led by big volume gains of 45 percent to China and 57 percent to Southeast Asia. In addition shipments to Mexico were up 12 percent. 

Cheese exports in April a record high in volume, up 72 percent from April 2009. And, if you look at the first four months of this year, U.S. exports of cheese were up 43 percent, she said, and looking at a percentage basis, in the first four months of this year, U.S. exports were equivalent to 29 percent of the milk powder produced, 63 percent of whey proteins and 3.1 percent of cheese. Overall, April exports represented 12.3 percent of U.S. milk solids production, the most since August 2008.