New Study Find that Cooperatives Working Together Enhanced Dairy Farmers’ Milk Checks by $1.54 in 2009
December 1, 2009
New Study Find that Cooperatives Working Together Enhanced Dairy Farmers' Milk Checks by $1.54 in 2009
Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has generated a return on investment of $1.54 per hundredweight so far in 2009, according to an independent economic analysis of the voluntary dairy farmer-funded and managed self-help program.
That evaluation was released at the 2009 NMPF Annual Meeting in Grapevine, TX, by Dr. Scott Brown of the University of Missouri, a nationally-known farm policy expert who is regularly called on by the U.S. Congress to assess agricultural economic issues.
Brown evaluated the impact of CWT’s two completed herd retirements in 2009, along with the lingering effect of the two conducted in 2008, as well as the herd retirement in 2007. He also noted positive contributions to price because of the bred heifer option that CWT has offered in recent years, along with CWT’s Export Assistance program, which while dormant this year, was active in 2007 and 2008.
Brown’s analysis showed that the combined effect of CWT’s cow-removal programs, as well as its export assistance program, helped raise farm-level milk prices by $1.54 per hundredweight this year, and added $2.4 billion to farm-level milk receipts in a year when dairy income is expected to shrink by more than $10 billion because of the global recession.
