Dairy farm management priorities and implications

Abstract

This analysis examines how dairy farmers prioritize critical management areas in their operations and derives implications for future growth. A questionnaire elicited preferences from seven dairy farm management areas: production/milking, calf/heifer, feed/crop, financial planning/analysis/management, risk, milk marketing, and employee/labor management. Significant heterogeneity was identified surrounding farmer prioritization across management areas. Dairy manager respondents allocated 52% of their management capacity and time, on average, to production/milking management. Investigating priorities via a latent class model, in one class, financial planning/analysis/management or employee/labor management become relatively more important, and potentially critical, to the growth of the operation. This analysis provides dairy operators and industry stakeholders insights to facilitate dairy farm success and growth. Larger farms already placing greater emphasis on employees and labor management indicated they were prioritizing financial management for their success whereas smaller farms with growth intentions largely lacked management focused on areas outside of production and milking management.