• Radio City Rockets Find Another Reason To Love Los Angeles
• World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference 
• Thoughts On The Future Of The Dairy Industry

Radio City Rockettes Find Another Reason to Love Los Angeles

The California Milk Advisory Board's humorous billboard campaign promoting Real California Cheese kicks up its heels in Los Angeles when it unveils a special billboard welcoming New York City's famed Radio City Rockettes: "Why the Radio City Rockettes get a kick out of California. It's the Cheese." The billboards will appear from November 1 through December 28 to call attention to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular featuring the Rockettes at the Universal Amphitheatre December 1 through December 28. The newest billboard represents an extension of a zany and increasingly popular part of the California scene, the "It's the Cheese" billboard campaign offering outrageous claims as to why people choose to come to California.

Courtesy of California Milk Advisory Board

World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference 

The World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference will be held in Seattle November 29th through December 3rd, 1999. This, the largest trade event held in the United States, is expected to launch the "Seattle Round" of negotiations. The meeting will involve 3000 delegates and observers from 165 nations, and will be funded primarily through private donations. For this event, the Seattle Host Organization has set a fundraising goal of 9.2 million dollars. Funds are used for both logistics associated with the conference, and for educational programs and forums focusing on discussion of the WTO and global trade. Results of this international trade symposium promise to be significant and ongoing. For more information visit www.wtoseattle.org/.

Thoughts on the Future of the Dairy Industry

Speaking at information sessions sponsored by the Holstein Foundation, Jerome Kozak, CEO of National Milk Producers Federation, discussed the increased pressure for efficiency in the dairy business, and the influence of the world market.

In 1998, we had fewer than 100,000 commercial dairy farms in the U.S. Within ten years the current number of 92,000 will be cut in half. Compare this figure with nearly 3.5 million farms in existence in 1950, and it is evident that the dairy business is not an area of rapidly-appreciating prices. Huge profits from the sale of a high-margin product are not a reality. Instead, earnings are only realized by high volume and cost-control. 

Another critical focal area will be the development of the world market, and its impact on America. Mr. Kozak talked about the significance of the numbers 95 and 96. The first, 95%, is the portion of U.S. dairy production that we market inside the U.S. We only sell about 5% of what we produce to foreign customers. The second number, 96%, represents the portion of the world outside the U.S. That means that 96% of our potential customers are beyond our borders.

This section was compiled
by Margo Souza