August 17, 2018 CapitalPress.com Dairy Subscribe to our weekly dairy or livestock email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Dairy Markets Lee Mielke Dairy markets continue upward By LEE MIELKE For the Capital Press C ash dairy prices moved higher last week as hot summer weather and back-to-school demand influenced the mar- ket. The Cheddar blocks ended up at $1.6575 per pound, up 7 cents on the week but still 8 1/2-cents below a year ago. The bar- rels closed Friday at $1.62, up 14 1/2-cents on the week and 6 1/2-cents above a year ago. The blocks inched up a quarter-cent Monday to $1.66, highest price since May 10, 2018, but gave back a half-cent Tues- day. The barrels were up 2 3/4-cents Monday and another 2 1/4-cents Tues- day, hitting $1.67, highest since Nov. 22, 2017, and 1 1/2-cents above the blocks, an inversion not seen since Dec. 19, 2017. Overall Midwest cheese production is steady, accord- ing to Dairy Market News. Preseason football drives Italian and pizza cheese sales. Some manufacturers have cut production by a day or so a week. Some are seeing lower milk supplies as Class I demand gears up for school openings. Spot milk ranged 50 cents under to $1 over class. Western cheese output remains active as milk yield is mostly at normal lev- els and sufficient to meet cheese processing require- ments. Cheese inventories are plenteous but “overall, the market undertone seems to be firming,” according to DMN. However, trade war rhetoric with China heated up again last week as the game of chicken continues. Cash butter closed Fri- day at $2.34 per pound, up 2 cents but 34 1/4-cents below a year ago. The butter gained 2 3/4-cents Monday and added 2 cents Tuesday, hit- ting $2.3875, highest since June 11, 2018. DMN says butter output is near its lowest point of the year. Sales remain steady to a bit slower but contacts are confident in the market direction, which has been steady to slightly bullish all year. School demand is in- creasingly a market factor helping sales. 9 Idaho dairy research center gains traction Fundraising for CAFE begins in earnest By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press SUN VALLEY, Idaho — The University of Idaho has had to tweak its plans for a world-class research and teaching facility to address the environmental and economic sustainability of animal agri- culture and food processing. But the Center for Agri- culture, Food and the Envi- ronment — called CAFE for short — will be one step clos- er to fruition if the university is successful in negotiating a price for farmland that lies within 50 miles of Twin Falls. “I think we have the site,” Michael Parrella, dean of the university’s College of Ag- ricultural and Life Sciences, said during the Idaho Milk Processors Association annu- al meeting on Friday. “If we can pull off this site acquisition, we’ll see CAFE on steroids” and things will move forward quickly, he said. CAFE will be the largest research dairy in the U.S. and the only one addressing milk production in an arid climate. “It is phenomenally im- portant,” he said. Idaho’s milk and dairy production is the third- or fourth-largest in the U.S. and is a force to be reckoned Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press Michael Parrella, dean of the University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, gives an update Aug. 10 on efforts to establish a world-class dairy research facility in south-central Idaho during the Idaho Milk Processors Association annual conference in Sun Valley. with. The research center will address the impact of dairy, focusing on environmental, economic and social sustain- ability of milk production and food processing, he said. Dairies, even large ones, are not going to be able to address these issues indi- vidually. CAFE’s mission is research, teaching and voca- tional training and outreach and extension, he said. The university had decided to purchase and retrofit an ex- isting dairy with 1,000 acres of associated cropland instead of building from scratch. It was looking for a dairy on scale with Idaho’s industry — about 2,000 cows — that is highly visible and affordable and has animal permits and water rights, he said. “That dairy doesn’t exist,” he said. The university also had been looking for property in Jerome County, with buy-in from the county’s economic development community, but it couldn’t find anything. So it started looking in surround- ing counties, found a site that would work for the research farm and is now in negotia- tions with the owners, he said. The plan now is to have a small on-site laboratory at the outlying research farm with a larger laboratory, outreach and extension center and a dormi- tory at the junction of Highway 93 and Interstate 84 in Jerome County, which will provide vis- ibility and public access. SUN VALLEY, Idaho — A revised plan by the Univer- sity of Idaho to establish the long-awaited Center for Ag- riculture, Food and the Envi- ronment — called CAFE — should breathe new life into fundraising efforts. The state Legislature has appropriated $10 million for the $45 million project, and the university has committed $15 million. The remainder needs to come from outside sources. Several entities have expressed interest, but solid commitments have been elu- sive. That’s why Michael Par- rella, dean of the university’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, took to the road last spring to host lis- tening sessions and inform the public about CAFE’s mission. There just wasn’t enough buzz about what CAFE is, he said during the Idaho Milk Processors Association annu- al meeting on Friday. The university set up a foundation for fundraising, but donations didn’t come flowing in as abundantly as officials had hoped. “The problem was we did not have a site,” Parrella said. The university needed to put a stick in the ground to secure the necessary buy-in, he said. And that might happen soon. The university is in ne- gotiations for farmland with- in 50 miles of Twin Falls, he said. If the site is secured, the university is hoping the Leg- islature will commit another $5 million to the project. The university is selling its Caine Veterinary Teaching Center in Caldwell and Boyer Av- enue property in Sandpoint, a site formerly used for re- search and extension, to pro- vide its $15 million share for CAFE. The project has received a $2 million endowment from the Idaho Wheat Com- mission, a $30,000 dona- tion from the Idaho Barley Commission and a $15,000 pledge from dairy farmers Don and Mary Johnson of Kuna. Simplot is also on board with CAFE funding, and the university has received ma- jor scholarship funding from Chobani for dairy students. Parrella said he’s go- ing to put out a fundraising challenge to agricultural commodity groups, whose support would strengthen the university’s request for more funding from the Leg- islature. Committee tables vote on Yakima nitrate plan By DAN WHEAT Capital Press YAKIMA, Wash. — A Ya- kima County plan to address nitrate pollution in the Lower Yakima Valley has not been adopted by the committee that drafted it but will be re- worked. The Yakima County Groundwater Advisory Com- mittee — including 22 local, state and federal governmen- tal officials, agricultural and environmental interests — met Aug. 9 and tabled a vote for adoption, said Rand El- liott, a county commissioner and committee chairman. “I was hopeful that we could have adopted the plan but some changes were re- quested so we are back to the drawing board,” Elliott said. Friends of Toppenish Creek, a local environmental group, and others request- ed technical and substantive changes, he said. Staff will put the changes in writing and the commit- tee will meet in two to three weeks to look at them, he said. Some involved nitrogen availability reports and a re- quest for more attention to legacy nitrates, Elliott said. The valley has been farmed for more than 100 years with a lot of chemical fertilizers applied in the last 60 years and without much thought to application rates in early years, he said. “We’ve accumulated a massive amount of nitrogen and it will take a long time to move that in the right direc- tion,” Elliott said. “There are a number of possible sourc- es and a number of possible solutions.” The plan recommends lin- ing dairy waste water lagoons, extending municipal water and sewer lines and increasing regulations on irrigated farms and dairies. An alternative is the drilling of deeper commu- nity wells in rural areas. The plan has 65 recommendations and is the result of six years of debate and work by environ- mental groups, dairies, farm- ers, residents and government officials. The Washington Depart- ment of Agriculture supports the plan. Friends of Toppe- nish Creek and others are concerned the plan doesn’t do enough to combat nitrate contamination and relies on voluntary compliance. “The plan is making sug- gestions to the county and other regulatory agencies and it is up to each of them to pur- sue elements of the plan as they see fit,” Elliott said. After committee adoption the next step would be a coun- ty State Environmental Policy Act review, then review by the state Department of Ecol- ogy, and the county adoption, he said. Testing between 1998 and 2008 found wells in the Low- er Valley with nitrate levels exceeding the federal safe limit of 10 parts per million. An EPA study concluded five Sunnyside area dairies contributed to excessive ni- trate levels in domestic wells. 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