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CapitalPress.com
Friday, February 4, 2022
Dairy
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Dairy sheep farmers use genetic evaluation
tool to improve production and profits
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
Across the U.S. and Can-
ada, innovative sheep farm-
ers are turning to a genetic
evaluation tool, GenOvis, to
make more educated breed-
ing, selection and culling
decisions.
Farmers who use the tool
say they have been able to
improve flock genetics, pro-
duction and profits.
Milk traits have good her-
itability, so sheep farmers
for generations have tracked
animals through body scor-
ing, measuring milk vol-
ume and mapping family
lines to select the rams and
ewes most likely to pass on
good milk traits. This can be
tedious, and it can also be dif-
ficult to distinguish between
visible characteristics, man-
agement impacts and under-
LEARN MORE
Bee Tolman, president of the Dairy Sheep Association of
North America, said DSANA will hold information sessions
about GenOvis for interested producers in February and
March.
Contact DSANA to learn more: hello@dsana.org
So far, most of the breeds in GenOvis’s database are East
Friesian, Lacaune and crosses. Over time, DSANA’s leaders
say they hope to see more sheep and breeds added to the
database for a fuller national dataset.
Courtesy of Rebecca King
Rebecca King with her sheep.
lying genes.
“When you look at your
animals, you can see physical
traits and production, but you
can’t see exactly what their
genes are,” said Rebecca
King, owner of Monkey-
flower Ranch and Garden
Variety Cheese in Royal
Oaks, Calif., milking about
90 sheep annually.
King was speaking at the
Dairy Sheep Association
of North America’s annual
symposium.
Now, using GenOvis,
King said it’s faster and eas-
ier breed for better milk traits.
GenOvis is an on-farm
sheep genetic evaluation
program run by a Canadian
company.
It works like this: A
dairy pays to be part of the
program, about $300 per
season.
Throughout the year, the
farm collects samples and
data on its flock’s produc-
tion: yield, milk components,
pedigrees, lambing data and
other records.
Three to five times a
year, the farm sends sam-
ples to the Rocky Moun-
tain Dairy Herd Improve-
ment Association in Utah,
which analyzes milk com-
ponents and somatic cell
counts.
From there, the data is
handled by Quebec-based
GenOvis, which gener-
ates an “estimated breeding
value” for each animal.
The producer can then
use this dataset to guide
breeding decisions.
Advice for sheep dairies on getting started with a distributor
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
Sheep dairy processors say mov-
ing from direct-to-customer mar-
keting to working with a distribu-
tor can be challenging, but if done
right it can open new opportunities.
In a panel discussion during the
recent Dairy Sheep Association of
North America’s symposium, two
longtime processors and a pair of
cheese distributors shared advice
with dairy farmers who make sheep
cheese and yogurt on how to get
started in distribution.
Liam Callahan, co-founder,
cheesemaker and CEO of Bell-
wether Farms in Sonoma, Calif.
— one of the nation’s two largest
sheep dairy processors — said he
thinks a great way to start in distri-
bution is by first building a direct-
to-consumer following, then get-
ting to know local chefs.
Bellwether Farms started in
this way in 1990, selling cheese at
Counter Cheese Caves
Nora Granger, left, with husband
Eric Casella, co-owners of Count-
er Cheese Caves, a boutique
cheese distribution company.
farmers markets and then expand-
ing to work with specialty chefs.
Callahan said it soon became
impractical to haul product around
in a van or SUV.
“We just needed people with
more trucks than we had,” he said.
He sought a distributor.
It helped that Bellwether Farms
already had chefs asking for his
product.
“One thing you’re going to learn
pretty quickly with distributors is if
they don’t have a customer who’s
asking for you, they’re not likely
to bring your product in,” said Cal-
lahan. “If you have a chef on your
side, it really greases your wheels. I
can’t emphasize that enough.”
Breaking into retail, Callahan
said, is more challenging.
Callahan said it’s crucial for pro-
ducers to understand retail pricing.
Most distributors have a 20% to
25% margin. If a farm sells a prod-
uct to a distributor for $1, the dis-
tributor may sell it at $1.25. The
retailer is likely to double that, sell-
ing the product for $2.25 or $2.50.
Husband and wife Eric Casella
and Nora Granger, co-owners of
Counter Cheese Caves, a South
Carolina-based cheese distribution
company, also offered producers
advice.
Casella said he is most likely to
take on a new cheesemaker who
ships him samples that are pack-
aged in a professional, attractive
and food-safe manner.
Granger, his wife, said farm-
er-cheesemakers should prepare a
simple, memorable elevator pitch
for their product that distributors
can use when talking to retailers.
“As much of that simple,
stay-in-your-brain
knowledge
as you can convey is great,” she
said.
Allyson Brennan, national sales
and marketing manager for Old
Chatham Creamery in New York
— another of the largest sheep
dairy processors in the U.S. — said
processors should also build in pro-
motional and advertising expenses.
“If you don’t build that into
your final pricing, it’s going to
come back to bite you,” said
Brennan.
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S266471-1
Milk price
forecast
highest in
eight years
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Tight milk supplies and
robust demand are expected
to pay off for dairy farm-
ers this year with an all-
milk price of about $23 per
hundredweight — the high-
est in eight years, accord-
ing to the top economist at
the National Milk Produc-
ers Federation.
The biggest factor is a
sharp drop-off in milk pro-
duction growth and cow
numbers, said Peter Vital-
iano, the NMPF’s chief
economist.
In May, U.S. milk pro-
duction was about 4.5%
higher year over year. Now
production is lower than
last year, he said during
the latest “Dairy Defined”
podcast.
The
drop-off
fol-
lows several years when,
despite low prices and mar-
gins, milk production kept
bouncing up. Low prices
would knock it down for
a few months, but then it
would increase back up to
3% year over year growth
on a fairly regular basis, he
said.
“What’s
noteworthy
about this latest contrac-
tion is that it seems like
that upward buoyancy that
we’ve seen for several years
in the face of not very great
returns to milk production
is kind of turned around,”
he said.
It’s as if after several
years of fighting low prices,
there was kind of a tip-
ping point occurring. How
long it will last is any-
body’s guess, but it’s fuel-
ing a strong price outlook,
he said.
The price outlook for
individual dairy products is
also the best in eight years.
The butter price outlook is
the highest it’s ever been in
a calendar year.
The price outlook for
cheese is the second high-
est and the whey outlook is
the highest in eight years,
he said.
“The futures are indicat-
ing currently that this sup-
ply tightness will continue.
Now, the big question is
with milk prices this good
and feed prices not going
up as fast as they were last
year, how long is that tight-
ness going to continue and
how soon will it be before
we see some expansion of
milk production again?” he
said.
On the demand side,
U.S. consumers have a
robust appetite for milk
and dairy products. Inter-
national demand has been
very strong, and Europe,
New Zealand and Australia
have not been able to pro-
duce enough to continue to
fulfill demand from China
and other buyers, he said.
“And the United States
is benefiting from that,” he
said.
The U.S. is on track to
export the largest volume
by quite a bit compared
to any previous year. The
entire world market right
now has more demand than
it has supply, and the U.S.
probably has more export-
able supplies than the other
major exporters, he said.
“I wouldn’t say the
industry is immune to a
major demand contraction,
but consumers domesti-
cally and internationally
have a ready appetite for
dairy that the industry can
pretty much count on being
there...,” he said.
But in the last several
years, producers have had
a tendency to overproduce
the market, particularly the
domestic market, he said.
“If supply and demand
can be kept in balance in
the domestic market, dairy
farmers can look forward
to a good year this year,” he
said.
That’s because the milk
price outlook is stronger
than the feed price outlook
at the moment, he said.