A farm aid nonprofit is launching an effort to deliver donated hay to ranchers in flood-stricken Nebraska, resurrecting a program first used nearly two years ago to help cattle producers facing drought conditions in the Upper Midwest.

According to agweb.com, North Dakota-based Farm Rescue is seeking volunteer drivers and donations of hay and money for what it calls “Operation Hay Lift” to help Nebraska ranchers dealing with widespread flooding.

Nebraska farm and ranch losses could reach $1 billion.

While devastating flooding in the Midwest has a ripple effect on the market, total losses in livestock and grain are not yet known, there are key factors to watch.

Citizens LLC’s Angie Setzer tells agweb.com ethanol capacity remains a question while a good percent of production is offline or damaged.

She says worries also remain about what impact the damage will have on shipping especially if flooding continues on the Mississippi River, but the million-dollar question is how much grain storage is lost.

World dairy prices climbed another 1.9 percent in aggregate on the Global Dairy Trade auction in New Zealand, the eighth consecutive twice-monthly trading session that saw prices increase.

Volume on last week's session, however, was light with just 21,713 metric tons trading hands.

The biggest gainer was butter, up 9.3 percent. Whole milk powder jumped 4 percent, and cheddar cheese rose 3.9 percent. Skim milk powder slid back a bit, falling 2.4 percent.

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