Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has completed the farm audits for the latest round of the herd retirement program. Most of the 74,114 cows that produced 1.5 billion pounds of milk have been sent to processing plants. In addition, 2,958 bred heifers also were removed through CWT’s eighth herd retirement round. Breaking the numbers down by region, 42 percent of the cows and 44 percent of the production in this round came out of the Southwest, 33 percent of the cows and 34 percent of the production removed came from the West. 11 percent of the milk came out of the Midwest, 7 percent from the Northeast and 4 percent from the Southeastern United States.
In the two herd retirement rounds conducted this year, CWT has removed 225,783 cows that produced 4.5 billion pounds of milk. In addition, 5,016 bred heifers were taken.
CWT Chief Operating Officer, Jim Tillison says given the continued crisis in dairy, “Additional herd reduction actions are possible in 2009.”
More details on the CWT program here.
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