Milk Producer - March 2009 - (Page 4)

EDITOR’SNOTES By Bill Dimmick THE MILK PRODUCER is published monthly by Dairy Farmers of Ontario 6780 Campobello Road, Mississauga, Ontario, L5N 2L8 EDITOR: Bill Dimmick ASSISTANT EDITOR: Sharon Laidlaw Co-ordinated by Communications and Planning Division, Bill Mitchell, Assistant Director. Change of address notices should be sent to: THE MILK PRODUCER 6780 Campobello Road, Mississauga, Ontario L5N 2L8. Subscription rates: $25.20 for one year, $46.20 for two years and $63.00 for three years in Canada (includes GST), $36 per year in the U.S., $36 per year overseas. Single copy: $2.50. Make cheques payable to Dairy Farmers of Ontario. Canada Post Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40063866. Return postage guaranteed. Circulation: 10,000. ISSN 0030-3038. Printed in Canada. ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE James Fitzgerald and Associates, 257 Huntingdon Avenue, Stratford, Ontario N5A 6P7. Toll-free advertisers only: 1-888-460-6212 Phone (519) 273-9369/Fax (519) 273-9289 E-mail: jfitzger@milk.org Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and/or editor and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policies of Dairy Farmers of Ontario. Publication of advertisements does not constitute endorsement or approval by The Milk Producer or Dairy Farmers of Ontario of products or services advertised. The Milk Producer welcomes letters to the editor about magazine content. Phone: (905) 821-8970 Fax: (905) 821-3160 bdimmick@milk.org slaidlaw@milk.org Website: Go to publications at www.milk.org E-mail: Opportune times Industry continues to have reason for economic optimism W hen we first decided to push ahead with this month’s cover story about how the current global economic crisis might affect Canada’s dairy industry, I had no qualms about it. After all, you can’t open a newspaper, listen to a radio station or watch a television show without reading, hearing or seeing new horror stories about our slide into a fiscal abyss. If we were wondering about the impact on the dairy industry, surely our readers were, too. So, assistant editor Sharon Laidlaw and I set out to unearth what we could. Before we really got started, I began having second thoughts. What if our industry were poised for a downward tumble like the auto sector, real estate or Icelandic banks? I sure wouldn’t want to be responsible for sparking panic among our readers, who literally have billions of dollars invested in dairy farms. Then I considered our advertisers. What if I wound up telling them they were trying to market products and services to an industry in trouble? Well, as Sharon and I delved into the subject and began talking to people with expert knowledge on the subject, we learned how the food industry generally and the dairy industry in particular are mostly immune to the ravages of the faltering economy. People whose jobs have disappeared, and those fearful of losing their paycheques, will put off buying a new car, heading south for a winter vacation or upgrading to a bigger house. However, they still have to eat. This doesn’t mean the dairy industry is totally recession-proof. We could see consumers shifting some of their purchases to regular cheese from fine cheese, for example. Still, we’re recession-resistant. Interestingly enough, this issue of The Milk Producer is one of our biggest ever. We have published a 56-page issue only once before in my 20 years at the helm of this magazine. That was last October. When we determine each issue’s page count, we look at planned articles, columns and other features, plus advertising volume. The deciding factor is always what’s best for our readers. We initially planned a 52-page issue. However, it just wouldn’t do. We would have had to leave out an article or two, or drastically pared the length of others. We like to keep our ratio of editorial content to advertising on the high side. Less than 40 per cent of this issue contains paid messages. However, those messages convey to me that our advertisers believe they are reaching potential buyers of their products and services. As it turns out, opportunity for the dairy industry is one of the direct results of the economic downturn. Supply management marketing continues to provide relatively stable income levels. Meanwhile, if you have a solid business plan and thoughts of upgrading or expanding your farm, you can find credit at less than it would cost even a year ago. 4 | March 2009 | MilkPRODUCER http://www.milk.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Milk Producer - March 2009

Milk Producer - March 2009
Contents
Editor's Notes
DFO Chair's Message
Dairy Update
DFC Promotion
Farm Finance
P5Pool Update
Issues Update
Weathering the Storm
Research
Applied Science
Ruminations
Markets
New 'N' Noted
Back Forty

Milk Producer - March 2009