Dairy

The Community Foundation of Carroll County is taking applications for the Nathan A. Blizzard Memorial 4-H/FFA Dairy Scholarship.The scholarship was established by Dianne and Melvin Blizzard Jr. in memory of their son.The one-time award is given to a college-bound senior who is active in 4-H or FFA, has carried a dairy steer or dairy project and has been accepted into a post-secondary school, or a student already attending college.Applications and criteria are available at the five county high schools, Carroll Christian High and the county 4-H office.

Embassy Dairy Inc., one of only five remaining commercial dairies in Maryland, announced yesterday that it will close in early April and lay off the last of its 150 workers.The 66-year-old Waldorf company's decision will eliminate one of the top employers in Charles County and could result in consumers' paying more for milk at grocery stores across the state, according to a company executive.Embassy has struggled in recent years and filed for bankruptcy-law protection last May. Factory workers had hoped that a new owner and wage concessions of nearly $6,000 a year would be enough to save their jobs.

WASHINGTON -- Why is Donna E. Shalala wearing a milk mustache?The secretary of health and human services has been showing up in full-color ads for months, a line of dairy product etched above her upper lip.Shalala, with the likes of David Copperfield, Spike Lee and Tyra Banks, is pitching the dairy industry. And some folks are having a cow over it.Shalala has insisted that her promotion of the milk industry is meant to encourage teen-age girls to get more calcium and prevent osteoporosis later in life.

State House gathering of grocers denounces dairy price supportsGrocery representatives gathered in front of the State House yesterday to denounce a dairy price-support bill that they argue will drive up the cost of milk.The effort to have Maryland join the Northeast Interstate Dairy Compact is being heavily lobbied by grocery chains on one side and dairy farmers on the other. A Senate committee rejected the bill last month, but has indicated it may reconsider.Farmers say they could lose business to nearby states if the legislature fails to act. But grocers yesterday called the bill a tax on a basic commodity.

A hearing on a bill designed to halt the sharp decline of the Maryland dairy industry attracted a herd of witnesses and offered conflicting testimony yesterday on its impact on the consumer price of milk.Proponents of legislation that would allow Maryland's secretary of agriculture to set the minimum wholesale and retail price of milk pointed out that milk costs less in Pennsylvania, where the dairy industry is already protected by a state price-support program.But the opponents, including two of the largest food retailers in the state, had their own price survey done last week that showed higher milk prices across the border.

Embassy Dairy Inc., one of Maryland's five remaining commercial dairies, announced yesterday that it filed for bankruptcy because of a threat of losing a major contract to fTC supply milk to the Safeway stores in the Baltimore and Washington areas.D. Bradley Holland, senior vice president and general manager of the Waldorf-based dairy, said a loss of the Safeway account would be "devastating" to the dairy's financial position.He said it would likely lead to the sale of the company and result in the layoff of between 50 and 70 of its 215 workers.

Controversial legislation designed to help stabilize Maryland's declining dairy industry by allowing the state agriculture secretary to set minimum wholesale and retail prices for milk was approved by a Senate committee yesterday.By a vote of 6-5, the Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee sent to the full Senate a bill that is intended to eliminate what supporters call an unfair advantage that milk processors in Pennsylvania and Virginia currently have over the industry here.Supporters argue that, because Pennsylvania and Virginia already have price support systems, processors there can take the profits from the milk they sell in their states and use their excess milk to grab additional customers in Maryland by "dumping" milk on the market here at below their production cost.

In a major shift, Baltimore's only milk processor has joined the ranks of the opponents of legislation aimed at stabilizing Maryland's rapidly declining milk industry.In a surprise move yesterday during a hearing before the Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee, opponents of the Fairness in Milk Marketing Act of 1997 introduced a letter from Cloverland Green Spring Dairy's general manager, Lawrence C. Webster, telling a customer that it could count the dairy as being opposed to the legislation.

NOW THAT CONGRESS has relinquished its grasp on the 856-acre Naval Academy Dairy Farm, the fate of this large swath of green space rests in the hands of the U.S. Navy. Let's hope the Navy brass listen to the academy's current leadership and do not allow the farm to become another tract housing development.The size and location of the parcel -- bounded by Routes 175 and 3 -- make it one of the most attractive development sites in western Anne Arundel County, which is already booming with housing because of its prime access midway between Baltimore and Washington.

Legislation to pump new life into Maryland's declining dairy industry by setting a minimum price for milk at the wholesale and retail levels received another major boost yesterday when it was approved by the House Environmental Matters Committee.After more than three hours of debate, the committee voted 13-8 to send to the full House a bill that is intended to eliminate what supporters call an unfair advantage that milk processors in Pennsylvania and Virginia currently have over the industry here.

Patty Sullivan of Catonsville is stumped by the dairy case. One kind of milk promises to make her children smarter. Another claims to come from healthier cows. Unable to sort all that out, she reaches for good old, conventional Costco milk."I find it very confusing," said Sullivan, who picks up five gallons a week for the Burtonsville preschool she runs. "You need a research degree to find out the differences. And is it really that much better for you?" Not long ago, consumers only had to ponder one thing before hefting a gallon jug into the shopping cart: How much fat did they want?

BEIJING - A court sentenced two men to death yesterday for their role in a tainted-milk scandal but gave the former chairwoman of China's largest dairy a lesser sentence of life imprisonment, enraging parents of infants who died. Milk adulterated with an industrial chemical killed six infants and left a staggering 296,000 or so sick last year in the largest food-safety scandal in China's recent history. A court in Shijiazhuang, a city in Hebei province that is headquarters for the Sanlu Group, one of the 22 dairies across the nation found to have peddled tainted milk products, issued the sentences in a closed-door hearing.

The fifth Howard County Farm-City celebration includes opportunities to pick pumpkins, pet animals and peer at farm equipment, all intended to give city dwellers a way to better understand farm life. "It's about educating the public about the importance of farms to their lives, to their health and to the environment," said Kathy Zimmerman, agricultural marketing specialist for the Howard County Economic Development Authority. "We want people to see the importance of having farms in the community."

When Bobby Prigel took over his family's Glen Arm dairy farm some years back, he shooed the cows out of the barn, cut his milk production by about 30 percent and planted grass on the cornfields. Prigel is considered a leader in Maryland among dairy farmers who have turned to what people in the industry call "grazers." His cows feed on grass out in the pasture instead of being kept in barns and fed a diet of grain. He says that turning back the pages of history to an earlier form of dairy farming has boosted his profits and reduced his workload.

When Bobby Prigel took over his family's Glen Arm dairy farm some years back, he shooed the cows out of the barn, cut his milk production by about 30 percent and planted grass on the cornfields. Prigel is considered a leader in Maryland among dairy farmers who have turned to what people in the industry call "grazers." His cows feed on grass out in the pasture instead of being kept in barns and fed a diet of grain. He says that turning back the pages of history to an earlier form of dairy farming has boosted his profits and reduced his workload.

In an industry that is the essence of routine, David and Kate Dallam are undergoing a radical lifestyle change. After 16 years of adhering to a rigid milking schedule on their Harford County dairy farm, the Dallams no longer must rise at dawn with the cows. They can go out to dinner or catch one of their children's ballgames without rushing home. David Dallam can spend more time in the fields, and Kate can tend their ice cream store. After all, the robot minds the herd. The Dallams, who run Brooms Bloom Dairy, a 240-acre farm in Creswell, recently installed a $180,000 computerized system that milks the cows, tracks yield data -- even keeps the cows calm.

Add milk to the list of products that consumers are paying more for this summer as analysts predict that prices will reach record highs during the next few months - fallout from the rising price of oil. The rising prices are pressuring profits at several companies that sell dairy products, including pizza, yogurt and ice cream makers. Domino's Pizza Inc., for example, said it could be forced to raise its prices due in part to higher cheese costs. Nationally, the average cost of a gallon of whole milk rose 19 cents during the past two months, to $3.26 in May, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Dairy farmer Donald Dell opened the lid of his 2,000-gallon milk tank, peering at the creamy white liquid inside. The tank is kept full by tubes that run to the nearby pumping station, where his 150 Holstein cows come to be milked. The Dells drink nothing but raw, unprocessed milk, straight from the tank. The family thinks that consumers should have the right to buy and drink nonpasteurized milk, too, and that the idea could help revive the state's ailing dairy industry, which has lost half of its milk producers in the last 15 years.

NICKEL MINES, Pa. -- He was a soccer dad and a quiet, hard-working, churchgoing family man who didn't flinch at changing diapers. So those who knew Charlie Roberts were in a state of shock yesterday when authorities named him as the suicidal gunman who shot a classroom full of girls, execution-style, in a tiny Amish schoolhouse. "The man who did this today is not the Charlie that I've been married to for almost 10 years," said Marie Roberts, 28, the gunman's widow, in a statement released to the press.

Elizabeth Denison Pindell, a homemaker and former co-owner of a dairy business, died of respiratory failure Saturday at Mercy Ridge Retirement Community, where she had lived since 2003. She was 88. Elizabeth Hammond Cromwell Denison was born in Baltimore and raised at her family's Hill House Farm on York Road in Timonium. She was a 1936 graduate of Notre Dame Preparatory School and made her debut at the Bachelors Cotillon that year. She owned a horse, Play 'Em, which she rode years ago to visit friends.