Posts Tagged: Bees Butler

California cows going to 'greener pastures'

At the World Ag Expo in February, nine states had booths designed to recruit California dairy operators out of the Golden State, reported the Los Angeles Times.

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard himself made a personal appeal for the state, where ag officials estimate that a single dairy cow creates $15,000 in economic activity each year.

In recent years, an average of 100 California dairies have closed annually, said Leslie "Bees" Butler, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis.

"Ten years ago, California was the low-cost producer," Butler said. With low milk prices and high feed costs, "it's become more difficult to dairy here."

Tweaking feed recipes can go a long way toward protecting farmland in and around dairy farms
Joshua Emerson Smith, The Merced Sun-Star

Overfeeding salts and other minerals to dairy cows can negatively affect soil and groundwater quality, according to a research report in the Journal of Dairy Science by Alejandro Castillo, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Merced County.

"This is going to be important for the sustainability of our dairy farms," he said. "We need to try to see the future and imagine the sustainability of our dairy farms and maintain the business for a long time."

A new lease on life
The Davis Enterprise

A series of photos by Sue Cockrell from the recent "groundbreaking" ceremonies for the new home of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources in Davis.

Milk prices going up; nitrate report gets more coverage

A story about USDA milk production forecasts for 2012 and 2013 included commentary from Leslie "Bees" Butler, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics as UC Davis.

Rising feed prices have caused some producers to sell cows rather than bear the expense of feeding them. Another option is to slaughter cows. Dairies have been doing that a lot -- to the chagrin of glut-wary beef producers -- since 2009 when the all milk price dropped to as low as $11.30 per hundred pounds, the story said.

A strong dollar at the time made foreign goods cheaper and domestically produced goods more expensive, Butler told reporter Courtenay Edelhart. That dried up the export market for American milk and led to oversupply at home that still hasn't been entirely corrected, he said.

Water agency urges farmers to test ground water for contamination
KTVU.com

Landmark new rules adopted by the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will require farmers to test ground water for nitrate contamination and report their fertilizer usage, according to the KTVU report.

The story mentioned that a recent UC Davis study showed 254,000 people in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley were at risk of drinking water contaminated with nitrates, much of which came from fertilizer.

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