Management

A distraught, middle-aged farmwoman recently asked me for advice on buying her daughter a farmhouse just down the road. This is a loaded question. When farm founders are considering how long they want to live on the farm, there can be a lot of conflict and frustration.

You don’t need technology to milk cows. But it sure makes it a lot easier. 

In the past few decades, many dairies have switched from physical cow cards to computerized herd management systems.

Companies that treat their accounting software as a tool only for compiling taxes are missing out on the opportunity to produce valuable management reporting.

With all the challenges going on in the dairy industry right now, most are finding themselves in crisis mode 24-7. This leaves little time to sit back and think about what got us here, how it can be solved and what we can do so future generations don’t have to go through the same thing.

Breaking up is hard to do but, as the risk manager for your farm, you should be prepared for the day when you and your lender may have to go your separate ways.

Sitting on my stool in front of the third farm audience of the week, I should not have been surprised to receive the same question for the third time by text: “Elaine, how we do we stop the conflict on our farm?”