FAQ: "Where can I buy your milk?"

Our regional dairy check-off is one of the sponsors of this upcoming weekend's FoodBlogSouth Conference in Birmingham, and they've invited me to attend Saturday's morning session. I’ll be available to chat with attendees and answer questions they have about modern dairy farming and milk production.  I thought it might be beneficial ahead of the conference to blog about three of the most common questions I’m asked regarding milk production:  1) “Where can I buy your milk?”, 2) “Are there hormones in my milk?”, and 3) “What’s the difference between conventional and organic milk?”. I’ll tackle that first question today and the other two in the coming days.

“Where can I buy your milk?” is a question I am asked frequently. It’s a question I love getting, because it gives me the sense that people really do trust my family’s farm to produce milk that is safe and nutritious.  We do not process and market our own milk directly from our farm, though, so the answer is not as simple as telling people to look for the Gilmer Dairy Farm label in their local grocery store.

We and several other Alabama dairy families are members of a cooperative (Dairy Farmers of America) that markets our milk collectively to dairy processors. Our milk is currently being bought by the Borden Dairy Company of Alabama and processed/bottled in their Dothan facility (I think this is the only in-state company currently processing “homegrown” Alabama milk). All jugs of milk that come through that processing plant will be stamped with the code “01-3801” and can be found in grocery stores listed on the Borden website.

So, there’s a good chance you are enjoying milk from Alabama cows (maybe even ours) when you purchase milk in jugs containing the above code. Regardless of the brand name or origin, though, you are helping dairy farmers every single time you purchase dairy products. Make sure you and your family members are each getting three servings of delicious, nutritious dairy every day, and thank you for giving family farms like mine the opportunity to serve you!

How young should a "young" farmer be?

Towards the end of my tenure as Chairman of the AFBF's Young Farmers & Ranchers Committee, a few people started talking to me about the possibility of raising the program's age limit from 35 to 40 years old. And even though I've been off that committee since early February, I'm still asked about it occasionally (had a conversation Monday, in fact). For those of you not familiar with the program, eligibility to participate in national YF&R contests or hold a position on the national committee is capped at age 35.  Most (if not all) state Farm Bureaus follow this same eligibility requirement, though other program participation (conferences, projects, etc.) may not have a mandatory "cut-off" age.

There are several merits to having a "young _______" program within an agricultural organization that is fully inclusive of members up to age 40.  It obviously allows for more participants and gives the program an opportunity to select more "experienced" leadership, both of which strengthen the program. It also helps keep members engaged and "paying their dues" within the organization while they may still be seen as too young or inexperienced for upper-level leadership positions. A higher age-limit also gives people who may not join the organization until their 30s an opportunity to receive the full benefit of the program.  My dairy co-op's Young Cooperator program is available for members through the age of 40, and it seems to work perfectly for our organization.

On the flip side, some counter that the role of a "young _____" program is to train and prepare its members to make an impact on the organization sooner than later, and that our best young leaders should be pushed to challenge for those higher leadership positions based on their ability and regardless of their age. Also, there is generally a fairly significant difference in maturity and life experience between people who are in their early 20's and late-30's, and having a program that spans a twenty year age difference between members could create two distinct internal sub-groups.  Another argument is that participation among younger members may decline if they believe their climb up through the pecking order will take several more years. 

All things considered, I think the overall goal of any organization (agricultural or otherwise) offering a program for its younger members is to get them personally invested and prepare them for future leadership.  As far as agricultural programs, there has been and will continue to be lots of conversation about where the 35-40 year olds fit within the hierarchy.  As for the ones I'm involved with, I think the age range for DFA's Young Cooperator Program and Farm Bureau's YF&R Program, though different, are right where they need to be.

So that's my opinion, one which I feel I can share more openly now that I am no longer part of the decision making process on this issue.  I'd love to get the perspective of y'all out in the blogoshere and internetland to see if your opinions vary as widely as they have in my conversations. What are your thoughts? How young should a "young" farmer be, or at least within the context of being labeled "young" by an agricultural organization?

Eat More Cheese...Borden Cheese!

No doubt, times are tough on the dairy farm right now. Really tough! Milk prices have remained sour and are just now showing signs of creeping higher, but I haven't seen anyone suggest that we'll see significant increases before we get well into next year.

But despite the depression that hits a dairyman when he looks at his farm's banking account these days, there are a few things to be positive about. One is that the public still holds us in high esteem, and people want to know that the money they spend on dairy products is finding its way to the farm.

Our farm is a member of the farmer-owned, milk marketing cooperative Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), and our membership in its predecessor co-ops goes back as far as I can remember. One of the big advantages to being a part of DFA is our ability to offer a wide variety of value-added products.

Take, for example, the Borden Cheese brand. Our co-op owns and processes Borden Cheese, which means everytime someone buys a package the proceeds come back to us instead of a big food corporation. The more often people buy Borden products, the more it helps cushion the blow for some 18,000 dairy farm farmilies across our country.

I've been fortunate over the past couple of weeks to speak with two of our county's three newspapers about the dairy industry and why our cooperative membership is so beneficial to our farm. One of those articles appears online at The West Alabama Gazette (the print edition included additional information about Borden). I expect to speak to at least two more newspapers and possibly even a television station or two within the next few days about these topics. With the dairy economy being such as it is, I'm very appreciative of the media giving me and other dairy farmers the opportunity to share about ways the consuming public can help us get out of this rut we're in.

If you would like to drink milk from our farm's cows, look for the processing plant code "0104-" stamped on the jug. There's a chance it might contain some of the milk produced by our cows. But if you want to help us out in another way, perhaps an even better way, buy dairy product brands that are 100% farmer owned. When you leave the grocery store, make sure you're taking Elsie home with you. Eat more cheese...Borden Cheese!

A good meeting in Memphis

I'm up in my room at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis during a long break of what's so far been a very good conference. My dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, is sponsoring the event to give producers more information about the opportunities that are available in a grazing-based system.

I doubt Gilmer Dairy Farm converts its forage management to an intensive grazing model, but I do see a lot of room for growth in the area. I think we could definitely find some ways to incorporate more managed grazing into our overall feed and management strategy.

The meeting will be resuming in a few minutes, and we'll have a networking dinner afterwards with another morning session tomorrow. I'll be back home about this time tomorrow I suspect.

Drillin' today, drivin' tomorrow

After a long weekend that started with a sick kid at home and ended with a sick employee missing both work shifts Sunday, I'm back and better than ever.

Well, probably not better than ever, but I am back.

We just took care of the basic milking and feeding over the weekend, and are hitting the new week pretty hard. I know dad and our employees have done several small odd-jobs this morning, and I've been back running the seed drill. I've switched from triticale to rye (AFC 20-20) and plan on running the drill all afternoon.

I'll be off the farm tomorrow for what I think will be my final meeting this year in Montgomery, and I don't expect I'll be going back there any time soon since I'll roll off the Alabama Farmers Federation Board and State Young Farmers Committee early next month.

I've grown so accustomed over the last 6 years to being actively involved and having responsibilities within both Dairy Farmers of America's Young Cooperators program (regional level) and ALFA's Young Farmers Program (state level), it's really going to be an adjustment for me next year when I don't have meetings to attend or off-the-farm responsibilities to deal with (excluding church, of course!).