NEAFA is excited to host the 2021 Annual Meeting at the Turning Stone Resort in Verona, NY. This August 30-31 event will be coupled with the Golf for Good Works Tournament on September 1st at the Turning Stone. The conference will host numerous speakers and presenters, including a presentation by the American Academy of Bovine Practitioners President Carie Telgen, DVM, a commodity markets update and outlook and a panel discussion on animal agriculture’s role in addressing climate change. The panel will be moderated by Tom Overton Ph.D. and Larry Chase, Ph.D and will include Curt Gooch of Dairy Management, Inc., Jon Patterson of Patterson Farms, Jamie Jonker, Ph.D. of the National Milk Producers Association and Mike Van Amburgh, Ph.D. of Cornell’s Department of Animal Science.
Wolf’s market outlook will be focused on the dairy industry and the commodities that impact it. “The outlook looks at the dairy industry and takes into account a lot of variables,” said Wolf. “Feed costs, (corn, soybean, hay, etc.), are a big portion of how the outlook is effected, especially given the situation that we’re in right now with the weather having such a big impact on feed. Weather impacts feed quality and trade needs. Right now, things look more like it did in 2012 and 2013. If they can’t grow it out west, then they’ll be importing it in and that effects the prices locally as well as nationally. There’s a lot to discuss with that dynamic and how it effects the industry as a whole.”
This is Wolf’s second year speaking at NEAFA after joining Cornell University. “I’m looking forward to seeing everyone in person again after 16 months of online meetings, and talking about what’s up with the markets and what’s going on with their area,” said Wolf. “For the dairy markets, a lot of people are trying to figure out the lessons from covid and what does that mean going forward for markets and policy. I would argue that the dairy markets were pretty resilient in the face of covid. Meatpacking markets were not as resilient. I think that there’s definitely some kind of feeling that there needs to be something done for small and medium size meat packers to maintain viability. Meatpacking is an industry that you’ll see changes made in the supply change because of covid, and we’ll talk that through during the annual meeting.
On top of the market situation is global trade according to Wolf. “The trade situation overlays all of this,” said Wolf. “Looking at what’s happened with China being heavy into the markets in the last year, and what’s that done to commodity prices. The US is falling very much behind in bilateral trade agreements. The UK and New Zealand for example have gotten ahead of us. The WTO provided even footing, but it’s been ignored a lot in recent years and it’s been felt to be not effective in many countries. The US hasn’t made a major new free trade agreement in 10 years; the redo of NAFTA was minor. In comparison, the UK and New Zealand have done many. Every time they make a trade agreement in a country that we haven’t, we have a price disadvantage there.”
Another important topic for the 2021 annual meeting is animal agriculture’s role in addressing climate change. NEAFA recently had a chance to sit down with Cornell’s Mike Van Amburgh to talk about what some of the topic may be focused on during the panel discussion.
“The problem we’re facing as an industry is that we live in a world of sound bites,” said Van Amburgh. “And the public at large that is taking in those sound bites doesn’t have an appreciation for where their food comes from, and they think that the environmental impact of animal agriculture is greater than it actually is. The general public is led to believe that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of producing milk and meat is a major factor effecting the planet; it’s not. They fail to recognize where it does sit in the inventory, which is about 2% of US GHG inventory, a fairly small number. The sound bites that have been spread have a welfare aspect as well. They spread the idea that anyone that has cows are being abusive, and I think my frustration with that is that they’re all speaking from an extreme position of privilege, including the availability of food, not just nutrition. There’s a lot of misinformation out there.”
For Van Amburgh, the difficulty is getting on top of these sensational sound bites with the truth. “The truth is never sensational,” said Van Amburgh. “In 2006 Time Magazine had a whole issue that basically said is your hamburger worse than your hummer. In 2012 the author of the paper they were referencing fixed their math, but no one reported on that. We need to be better on explaining animal agriculture’s role in society, and getting our message out there and figuring out a way that consumers can understand it. We have the lowest GHG emissions per unit of milk of anyone in the world.”
“We’ve decreased methane output by transitioning 30-50 cow herds to 3000 cow herds. You hear often that the dairy industry is in such bad shape, and it’s really not. It’s a business. It’s a way of life if you want to look at it that way, but if a business doesn’t evolve as the industry evolves, you have to question the sustainability of that business. Look at cars. We’ve spent 100 years on gas and fossil fuels, and now we’re all going electric. Everything has to change. We’re not good at that in agriculture because we’re tied to the ground, we’re tied to things that don’t change at a human scale, but a geologic scale. It’s painful. I don’t necessarily like it either, I came from a 50-cow family farm. But it’s important to embrace what’s needed for the future of the industry.
Chris Wolf, Mike Van Amburgh, Jon Patterson, Jamie Jonker and Curt Gooch will be at the podium Tuesday August 31st at the Turning Stone Resort. For registration information click here.