Dairy Profitability Presentations

The Penn State Extension Dairy team is offering a free series of presentations for your clients. These presentations will provide your clients useful strategies to use on their own farm to improve their profitability. The Penn State Extension Dairy Team can offer the following information at your next dairy producer meeting, at no cost:

• 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
• Penn State Extension resources including, but not limited to:
  • Profitability Assessment Dairy Tool (year-end)
  • Income Over Feed Cost (monthly)
  • Penn State Profitability Newsletter, including additional data and strategies
  • Cash flow planning workshops

About the profitability research

In 2010, the Penn State Extension Dairy Team began the dairy profitability research project “Whole Farm Assessment Tools to Identify Strategies for Increased Dairy Farm Profitability.”
 
Financial and production data was collected from PA dairies over two years. Data was analyzed to determine relationships between operational and capital efficiency and overall return on assets of high profit level farms. Specific strategic changes that will result in improvement in management and financial parameters were identified and summarized.

Current project data includes historical financial and production data from 2009 and 2010 collected through the Profitability Assessment Dairy Tool (PA Dairy Tool) and Income Over Feed Cost (IOFC) data from 2010 to present.

About the presentations

Presentations can be from one hour to one day in length. Because of the extent of information available, a minimum 2 to 4 hours is recommended.

The Penn State Extension Dairy Team will work with your company to adapt the focus of the presentation to your meeting’s specific goals or subject matter. For example: forage quality, risk management, ration balancing, replacements, reproduction, milk production, milk quality, purchased feed and more.

Availability

Presentations may be scheduled May through August 2012.

Contact information

To schedule a presentation or for more information:

• Dr. Lisa Holden, associate professor, dairy and animal science, Penn State. Local phone: 814-863-3672 Toll-free: 888-373-7232
• Rebecca White, senior extension associate, Penn State Extension. Local phone: 814-863-3917 Toll-free: 888-373-7232

For more information

• White, R. A., L. A. Holden, V. A. Ishler, G. A. Varga, and M. B. Douglass. 2011. Using whole farm assessment tools to identify strategies for change to increase dairy farm profitability. J. Dairy Sci. Vol. 94, E-Suppl. 1.