More milk needed for growing cheese markets

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With foreign and domestic demand for Wisconsin cheese on the rise, state cheesemakers can use all the milk that state dairy farmers can produce and then some.
The state stopped tracking what state-produced milk is used for in the 1990s; however, current estimates place it at 90 percent for Wisconsin. Also, the USDA reports that 10 percent of cheese produced in Wisconsin is made from milk produced in other states.
So how do you increase milk production in Wisconsin to meet increased demand for the cheese industry? That was the topic of the State Journal’s second Business Roundtable. That and other related topics were discussed at the Oct. 8 event at the State Journal.
Panelists included:
Dr. John Lucey, director, UW-Madison Center for Dairy Research and a food scientist.
Kate VandenBosch, dean, UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Mark Stephenson, director, UW-Madison Center for Dairy Profitability.
Joan Behr, director of communications and brand management, Foremost Farms USA.
Mark Schleitwiler, vice president of external relations, BelGiosio Cheese, Green Bay.
Daniel Smith, division administrator, state Division of Agriculture Development.

Two-pronged approach

Panelists noted two approaches that are being taken to increase milk produced by Wisconsin’s dairy farmers. The first, logically, is to increase the number of cows producing milk. In 2013, the state had 1.271 million dairy cows, according to Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board statistics. From 2003 to 2013, Wisconsin increased its state herd by 15,000 cows or 1.2 percent.
But increasing the size of state herds isn’t the only consideration, Stephenson noted. “We shouldn’t discount the increase in milk per cow. Productivity has been a just a remarkable trend in the dairy industry. Almost linear, it hardly deviates at all year to year,” he said.
National Agriculture Statistics Service and USDA statistics bear that out. In January 2014, the average Wisconsin dairy cow produced 1,825 pounds of milk. That compares to 1,505 in January 2004, 1,205 in 1994, 1,050 in 1984, 845 in 1974 and 750 in 1964.
Stephenson noted better genetics and better farm management practices played key roles.
The average milk production per cow was 21,693 pounds in 2013, according to the Milk Marketing Board. But some cows, Stephenson noted, can give up to 70,000 pounds of milk per year.
He doesn’t see an end to the trend of increasing production any time soon. “There’s a lot of headway possible,” he noted.
Schleitwiler has seen the difference better facilities and farming practices make.
“We’re seeing as farms modernize — it’s not universal — but on many of those farms we’re seeing higher milk production” through better care and nutrition, he said. “We’re seeing significant gains by simply moving animals from one farm into a new facility.”
But what about farms that lag behind?
State Division of Agriculture Development’s Daniel Smith, a former dairy farmer, said the state’s Dairy 30×20 initiative is meant to improve the long-term viability of Wisconsin’s dairy industry to achieve an annual milk production of 30 billion pounds by 2020 to meet growing demand. (The state produced 27.57 billion pounds in 2013, according to the Milk Marketing Board.)
The program offers grants to producers (farms) and processors. Profit teams often work with farmers whose herds have below-average milk production. Many times, he noted, low yields are caused by production issues.
Through Dairy 30×20, the state has worked with more than 125 farms, Smith noted. Farmer grants average around $4,000. “If you’re going to only spend $4,000 on a farm, you’ve got to make sure it makes the biggest impact. So you don’t just go in and put in a new compressor. What you have to do is change the (farmer’s ) mindset and change the whole management landscape,” Smith said.
However, some small farms with underproducing herds lack resources to make substantive changes.
“I think the bigger challenge is what do you do with the ones that are lagging so far behind that they are still only producing 12,000 pounds,” Smith said. “They are depreciated out, and the farmer is aging. There is no way — even if there is a willingness for the next generation to take over — to have the funds to take over.”
Other opportunities exist to educate farmers, the UW’s VandenBosch noted.
“We have a number of different formal and informal programs to be able to transfer knowledge about best practices and emerging knowledge,” she said, including undergraduate programs at UW-Madison and UW-River Falls, the UW-Madison short courses and the UW-Extension, among others.
Stephenson noted processors understand there are opportunities for growth. “They have more potential markets for their products than they have the ingredients” to make them.
Schleitwiler said there was concern several years ago that milk production would outstrip capacity in the state. A few co-ops and proprietary plants built additional capacity expecting 4 to 6 percent annual growth. However, growth has stayed at about 2 percent. So, he said, depending on the product, milk solids are being brought to Wisconsin to be used in cheese.

Education needed

Another issue, Schleitwiler said, is farms that are building new facilities.
“There is some fear that there are going to be detrimental impacts to the environment when you have large dairy operations,” he said. “We need to do more to ease that burden in the agricultural community.”
People move to the country, but they don’t understand what these operations are doing, he said. “Really, we’re providing food. That is our entire goal. It’s not disposing of waste and spreading manure. It’s adding nutrients to the soil to help grow crops. We need to be more active to educate our consumers.”
Public education about animal treatment is important as well. But Stephenson noted that dairy cows on the larger farms receive quality treatment, with many having multiple veterinarians on staff.
And public education is also needed, panelists noted, so fears about farming — particularly with large operations — don’t lead to regulations that would unnecessarily hamper the industry.
“As an educator,” VandenBosch said, “I have to say it is so critically important that we bring evidence to the public to make decisions based on evidence rather than presumption, and that there is just so much very cool science there.”
Added Foremost Farms’ Behr: “I think it is important that we are transparent and that we must share it. People today don’t have that connection to agriculture like they did 30 years ago, and a lot of people don’t have a science background. So we really have to be careful in how we educate consumers so we don’t overwhelm them and needlessly put fear in them in what we’re doing: producing food.”
Behr said Wisconsin has done a great job trying to tell dairy’s story to the communities as well as uniting farmers and processors so reinvestment can take place at both levels.
Foremost Farms, a farmer-owned milk processing and marketing cooperative headquartered in Baraboo, has members in seven Midwest states.
“The fear is that we don’t want to get so complicated and so tight from a regulatory standpoint that it ties farmers’ hands and processors’ hands in terms of future investment and allowing our industry to grow,” she said.
Panelists ageed there is a misconception that there are family farms and large corporate farms and a gulf between them.
“Our large farms are mostly family farms, too,” Smith said. “They employ an awful lot of farmers, too. It isn’t fair to make the distinction.”
Milk Marketing Board stats show that in Wisconsin, 98.8 percent of farms of various sizes are family owned. The 2012 Agriculture Census notes that of Wisconsin’s 69,754 farms 4,503 have 1 to 9 acres, 17,825 have 10 to 49 acres, 25,502 have 40 to 179 acres, 15,688 have 180 to 488 acres, 3,885 have 500 to 999 acres, 1,580 have 1,000 to 1,999 acres and 6,721 have 2,000 acres or more.

Looking ahead

Wisconsin produces 25.5 percent of the cheese and about 50 percent of the specialty cheese made in the United States.
Wisconsin cheesemakers produce more than 600 varieties, types and styles of cheese, from cheddar curds to Big Wheel Swiss.
“That’s where the opportunity is. That’s where the demand has increased,” Lucey said.
Consumers want those unique products, Schleitwiler noted. “There are foodies out there, and that has just exploded. They want unique products, and they want high-quality products, and they are willing to pay for them,” he said.
Specialty cheese will continue to be a big player, Lucey said. The American Cheese Society defines specialty cheese as cheese of limited production, with particular attention paid to natural flavor and texture profiles. Specialty cheeses may be made from all types of milk including cow, sheep, goat and may include flavorings, such as herbs, spices, fruits and nuts.
“Right now, I think 22 percent of Wisconsin production is in specialty (cheese),” Lucey said. “(There’s) no reason that couldn’t be 30 percent or more in the next 10 years.”
Lucey tells the story of a friend who visited Madison 20 years ago for an event at which all different types of cheese were on display in an effort to get state producers to consider specialty products. Many of those displayed cheeses weren’t made in Wisconsin.
The friend recently returned for a similar event. “But when he came back this time, there were award-winning, high-quality cheeses that were made in Wisconsin and there were lots of them. I think we’ve made tremendous change.”
Schleitwiler agrees.
“Today, we are producing the best-quality cheese in the world,” he said. “They are tremendous. We’ve had visitors from Europe who say a lot of our products are better than what they’ve purchased in Europe.
“They were amazed they weren’t European products.”
 
Source: Wisconsin State Journal

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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