August 6, 2009
Third herd retirement in nine months to remove 87,000 cows
A cooperative of dairy co-ops Wednesday (August 5) announced that its third herd retirement program in the last nine months would remove 86,710 cows from production.
Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) made the announcement in a release and added that the cows account for 1.8 billion pounds, or 209.3 million gallons, of annual production. This combines with CWT's previous two herd retirements to equal a total production capacity of 4.8 billion pounds of milk being removed since December 2008.
This is the second-largest herd retirement since the farmer-funded self-help program started in 2003, the release said. The previous retirement round completed in July removed a record 101,000 cows and 1.96 billion pounds of milk.
