What proven strategies and tools can Pennsylvania dairy producers use on-farm to become more profitable?

The Penn State Extension Dairy Team has spent the past two years investigating the practices of a cross section of Pennsylvania dairy farms and is now sharing its research findings with producers and the agribusiness professionals who serve them.

“We found great opportunities to increase profits on dairy operations,” notes Rebecca White, senior project associate with the Penn State Extension Dairy Team, who helped conduct the research.

“For example, the farms in the study lost on average $242 per cow per year due to a high herd average days in milk. These losses can be minimized by utilizing tools from the Penn State Extension Dairy Team to pinpoint the route of the problem and, most importantly, to find a solution that can be implemented.”

In 2010, the Penn State Extension Dairy Team began the dairy profitability research project titled: “Whole Farm Assessment Tools to Identify Strategies for Increased Dairy Farm Profitability.”

Financial and production data collected from a cross section of Pennsylvania dairies over two years has been analyzed to determine relationships between operational and capital efficiency and overall return on assets of high profit level farms in the study.

Specific strategic changes that will result in improvement in management and financial parameters have been identified and summarized.

These findings are available online, including audio recordings explaining the strategies, supporting resource materials, and links to Penn State profitability tools, including the Penn State Profitability Assessment Dairy Tool and the Penn State Income over Feed Cost Tool.

Agribusiness professionals may also schedule Penn State educators to offer presentations about the new dairy profitability research and strategies to their clients. Presentations are free of charge and will include:

• Results from Penn State Extension research project: “Whole Farm Assessment Tools to Identify Strategies for Increased Dairy Farm Profitability”’
• Specific strategies for improving farm profitability  
• Available Penn State Extension resources including, but not limited to the Penn State Profitability Assessment Dairy Tool, the Penn State Income Over Feed Cost, the Penn State Profitability Newsletter, including additional data and strategies; and cash flow planning workshops.

Presentations may be scheduled May through August and can be adapted to focus on specific goals or subject matter, including forage quality, risk management, ration balancing, replacements, reproduction, milk production, milk quality, purchased feed and more.

For more information, contact the Penn State Extension Dairy Team at (888) 373-7232.  PD

—From Penn State news release