Search - Dairy Herd

Tell AgWeb what is on your mind! Send your comments to editors@agweb.com.

For the last 33 years I have farmed in south Oxfordshire England UK – in partnership with my wife. We have four grown up children. Our ‘downland’ farm is located in the Thames Valley on the outskirts of a village called Brightwell-cum-Sotwell in an area classified as one of ‘Outstanding Natural Beauty’. The farm has an extensive range of traditional and modern farm buildings but a limited land base which has demanded intensification and diversification of the business over the years. We have been through the gambit of livestock enterprises breeding and fattening pigs, beef at all levels and now run an early lambing flock of sheep in-wintered with straw as the base fodder, grow wheat, oilseeds, potatoes and have an extensive diversification enterprise letting traditional farm buildings as workshops. Marketing is through cooperative or group resources and we also sell produce directly from the farm-gate. My formative years were spent at the Royal Agricultural College Cirencester with a post-graduate at the University of Reading and worked as an Advisor with the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food and in Farm Management Consultancy before having the farming opportunity – which was never intended to be a full-time job! I am a Nuffield farming Scholar. My wife and I are very involved in our local community and with many wide ranging farming committees and bodies. Currently I am a Director of a Farm Buying Group and for the last five years have been stretching myself writing a monthly ‘Farmer Focus’ column for the Farmers Weekly Magazine one of the leading farming journals here in the UK. The aim is to have more holidays and wind down – but this seems to demand in the short term greater involvement and a winding up!

Kevin Van Trump has over 20 years of experience in the grain and livestock industry. Van Trump traded professionally at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Kansas City Board of Trade, often advising some of the biggest players in the market. Van Trump recently launched Farm Direction in an attempt to help farmers improve their overall marketing efforts. In this blog, he’ll help guide you through some of the pitfalls and mistakes associated with marketing in today’s volatile markets. He will help you build and execute a plan that is right for you and your operation, while providing you with his specific marketing thoughts and current positions.

Jon is Managing Partner of Market Wise Ag Services. He is a 1984 graduate of Iowa State University in Agriculture Business. Jon has had a passion for farming and agriculture since childhood. His career path has included companies such as PHI Marketing Services, Inc., a subsidiary of Pioneer Hi-Bred Intl. Inc., Garst Seed, the GROWMARK Cooperative System and Cargill. Jon has over 14 years of experience in agriculture marketing and serves clients in Iowa and Minnesota.

John Blue, as Chief of Community Creation for Truffle Media Networks, has responsibility for developing the ability to engage audiences through marketing, technology, and in person interactions. Truffle Media Networks provides high-quality, turnkey production and distribution of agriculture business-focused podcasts. Truffle Media Networks produces BeefCast®, CropVillage™, DairyCast®, PoultryCast®, and SwineCast® for the agricultural industry.

Making an informed marketing decision requires knowing what bulls AND bears are looking for in price action. We’ll share our key thoughts on each market - followed by a verdict. So grab a cup of coffee and let’'s dig in and sort it out..

Dave Fogel spends his day serving as a mentor to our Ag Risk Management Consultants/Marketing Advisors. He has been with Advance for 29 years and has extensive experience helping farmers manage risk and solve problems in all ag commodities. The Advance Trading team believes strong caring relationships built on trust and education leads to farmer knowledge and increased knowledge of managing risk.

Cyril Cogniard is a French explorer touring farms in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. He grew up on a farm in Champagne-Ardenne, France where his family grows wheat, malting barley, rapeseed, sugar beets, lucerne and maize on 600 acres. Cyril, 25, is a farm advisor for the French agricultural advisory firm Centre d’Economie Rurale (CDER).

Eddy Lamar is a member of the Chicago Board of Trade and is registered as a floor broker with the CFTC and the NFA. He currently works as one of the risk managers for a large Futures Commission Merchant where he helps monitor risk for floor traders and funds trading a variety of products.