News

CWT completes herd retirement audits

Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program has finished the farm audits for its seventh herd retirement round. The program will remove 101,040 cows making up 367 herds in 41 states. More than 43,000 of the cows will come from the Southwestern part of the country and 38,000 come out of the West. The Midwest will send 8,100 cows to market, 6,400 from the Southeast and 5,100 out of the Northeastern United States.

In May and June, CWT auditors were sent to each of the farms whose bids were accepted. Once the information submitted by the farmers with their bid was verified, each of the cows had a special CWT ear tag applied, and the farmers were a brief amount of time to sell their cows for processing. Once the sales receipts for the animals are verified and ear tags are returned to CWT by the processing plants, farmers are issued payment, and their names are posted on the CWT website.

CWT Chief Operating Officer Jim Tillison says while this round will remove about 1.96 billion pounds of milk production it is most likely still not enough to turn milk prices around. He says more CWT herd reduction activities are likely this year.