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Awards honor the ‘best of the best’ dairies that manage environmental impact and contribute to local communities while building business value.

The award program recognizes dairy farms, businesses and collaborative partnerships for their contributions to healthy people, healthy products and a healthy planet.

The key is to hedge regularly, but distant months.

The site reinforces the U.S. dairy industry’s important role in a safe, affordable and abundant food supply.

Only the individual dairy farmer – after much discussion with family members and input from lenders and other key advisers – can make the decision to exit.

Goal is to seek long-term solutions for state’s struggling dairy industry, with recommendations developed by year’s end.

CHRISTOPHER DOERING, Gannett Washington BureauWASHINGTON -- Farmers and ranchers suffering through the worst drought to hit the United States in more than 50 years will receive additional help from the government, but Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warned on Monday the department does not have the necessary tools to adequately help producers.USDA’s latest assistance package will allow for haying and grazing to occur on Wetlands Reserve and Conservation Reserve land that have been impacted by the drought, including acres that are abnormally dry or suffering from moderate drought conditions. Until now only areas deemed to be in severe to extreme drought were eligible.

The race to create a better, less controversial biofuel has spawned plenty of research into a variety of potential new sources - including switchgrass, cornstalks and algae. One goal behind the next generation of ethanol fuel is to end the debate over whether crops that could be used for food or animal feed are being converted into fuel. It’s a debate that’s dogged traditional ethanol, made from corn. A team of Wisconsin researchers say they may have found an abundant and eminently Dairyland ingredient for ethanol - cow manure from the state’s dairyfarms. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a coalition of state firms have been awarded $7 million for bioenergy research that would use a manure byproduct to produce ethanol at a dairyfarm in Manitowoc County.The funding was awarded by the U.S. Energy and Agriculture departments through their joint biomass research-and-development initiative.

Dairies encouraged to apply for the $10,000 award.

The three-dairy family operation will ship all its milk to Texas plant.