Thomas Friedman wrote an excellent book on globalization with the provocative title The World is Flat. Friedman points out it is the free flow of information through communication technologies such as the Internet that has greatly advanced globalization.

In a global economy, production of goods tends to flow to places where inputs such as capital and labor are least expensive. Everyone is familiar with the many consumer items that are made in China and other developing countries and offered for sale in the United States. Many of these products were once made in the United States, but manufacturers found it far more profitable to relocate their factories to developing countries where wages were much lower.

As this shift occurred, many low-skill manufacturing workers in the United States were left without jobs. Thus, low-skill, high-wage U.S. workers lost jobs to low-skill, low-wage workers in other countries.

Friedman argues that countries such as the United States cannot and should not try to compete for low-skill, low-wage jobs. Instead, we should invest in training and education so that our workforce is high-skill and worthy of high wages. Thus, the jobs we create in this country would mainly be those requiring creativity and advanced skills.

So what does all this have to do with dairy? Does the persistent shortage of local candidates for front-line dairy jobs and the influx of immigrant labor indicate that dairy is a low-skill industry? If so, can dairy survive in the United States where high-skill, high-wage jobs are the way of the future? Industries such as textile manufacturing have all but left the United States; will dairy also move to places where low-skill, low-wage labor is abundant?

Mason-Dixon farms recently moved part of its herd into a robotic milking facility. This strategy replaces the most repetitive and labor-consuming dairy task, milking, with advanced robotic technology. I visited the facility and was amazed by how well the robots appeared to perform.

When the milking task is performed by robots, the remaining jobs for people can be designed to include more advanced responsibilities such as animal care and management. These more advanced jobs fit the high-skill, high-wage job profile that is apparently the future of the U.S. workforce.

What is your strategy for the future? Can you structure your dairy business so it can attract high-skill, high-wage workers? This article contains more questions than answers, but these are issues that cannot be easily resolved. Globalization and the characteristics of the available workforce will have a major impact on the dairy industry in the future, and it is time that we started discussing these issues.  PD

—From Penn State Dairy Digest, September 2006

Richard Stup, Senior Extension Associate, Penn State Dairy Alliance