DAIRY OPPORTUNITIES

CCCD presents its Challenges and Opportunities for California’s Dairy Economy, available for download here. This report was developed from over 130 interviews with stakeholders across the dairy industry. Chapters discuss the following topics: industry overview, supply management, price risk management, dairy biogas systems, California’s dairy co-ops, value-added opportunities (including survey results and analysis), dairy funding opportunities (click here to download just this chapter), and the McKinsey Report on California dairy.

Also, congratulations to the winner of the “CCCD Dairy Opportunities Survey” prize drawing! Dairy producer Marcel van Stuijvenberg of Napa, CA won 6 hours of consultation with Dan Strongin of Edible Solutions. Thanks to all survey respondents!

LIVESTOCK GROSS MARGIN-DAIRY INSURANCE WORKSHOPS

Below are the proceedings from the LGM-Dairy Workshops:

“LGM-Dairy: A New Risk Management Tool for California Dairies”
“Flowchart- LGM-Dairy: An Overview”
“Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy: A California Example”
“Flowchart- LGM-Dairy Optimizer”
“Instructions on Getting Started Using the University of Wisconsin LGM-Dairy Software System”

Here is video of the conference in a variety of formats:
Download the video here:
LGM-D Intro (66:36 min): Ogg Video, MPEG 4 Video
(View along with the “LGM-Dairy: A New Risk Management Tool for California Dairies” PDF linked above.)

California Example (38:35 min): Ogg Video, MPEG 4 Video
(View along with the “Livestock Gross Margin for Dairy: A California Example” PDF linked above.)

The Livestock Gross Margin-Dairy insurance program has become available to California producers as of July 30th. LGM-Dairy is a new, unique tool for producers to manage price volatility of both milk and feed. LGM-Dairy differs from other price risk management tools in several important ways. It can be engaged throughout the year, uses low minimum volumes, addresses both feed and milk price risk, and has relatively low overall costs. However, the sign-up period is only one day each month and premiums are due upon sign-up.

In order for the dairy community to effectively assess LGM-Dairy, the California Center for Cooperative Development (CCCD) presented several one-day educational workshops in the second week of August. Each one-day workshop was offered in three California locations: Petaluma, Modesto, and Tulare. These workshops were targeted towards producers, dairy and feed supply co-ops, insurance providers, lenders, and agricultural agencies. The workshops were conducted by Dr. Brian Gould of the University of Wisconsin, who has given numerous presentations on the program. Dr. Gould also provided a comparison between LGM-Dairy and the proposed National Milk Producers Federation revenue insurance program. The training included a hands-on interactive workshop where attendees paired up on laptops and learned to use software that calculates a producer’s optimal LGM-Dairy contract.

The schedule for each workshop was as follows:
10:00am – 10:05am: Welcome
10:05am – 11:00am: A Brief Introduction to LGM-Dairy
11:15am – 12:15pm: Application of LGM-Dairy to a California Dairy Operation
12:15pm – 1:00pm: Complimentary Lunch
1pm – 2pm: Hands-on Workshop Using LGM-Dairy Web-Based Software: Case Studies in Identification of Desired Contract Design

You can find more information about LGM-Dairy at http://future.aae.wisc.edu/lgm_dairy.html. Californians can also contact USDA Risk Management Agency regarding LGM-Dairy:

Leticia McElroy, Risk Management Specialist, (530) 792-5886, Leticia.Mcelroy@rma.usda.gov
Catharine Anderson, Risk Management Specialist, (530) 792-5885, Catharine.Anderson@rma.usda.gov

This event was made possible by funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is co-sponsored by California FarmLink.