Making Better Dairy Farmers

May 14, 2014

Dairy Sen$e Conference Teaches Young People the Business Side of Dairy Farming

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Balancing the books is an important skill for any successful farm business, especially when it comes to dairy farming. And that’s why 4-H Ontario and the Ontario Holstein Branch came together to develop a workshop aimed at providing young people with more information about the logistics of managing a successful dairy operation.

The program which has been running for five years, was recently held at the University of Guelph from May 1 to 3, 2014. Young people from across the province aged 18 to 25 gathered to take part in the three day conference.

“We’re really trying to make sure the Dairy Sen$e program gives them some practical and financial knowledge that they can take home and use in their own operation,” Jason French, General Manager, for the Ontario Holstein Branch said in a release.

Participants listened to presentations from industry experts and then were able to apply the skills that they learned in a case study format. One of those presentations was from AgCareers.com. “We were able to provide business advice from a human resources perspective to young farmers in the dairy industry,” Carolyn Lee, Account Manager said in an interview.

The 4-H motto of “Learn to do by Doing” was the approach taken with the workshop. On the final day of the conference, attendees were given a case study project and asked to analyze four farms, and offer recommendations on how these farms could improve their operations.

Members were divided in groups of three, with a total of 10 teams. Each team was given 12-pages of information on each of the four farms, including material on debt capacity, cash flow, income statements and production numbers.

Kathleen Baird, 24, was part of the winning team. She explained that the conference helped her expand on the knowledge that she learned while attending Ridgetown College.

“The nice thing about the case study exercise is that it allowed us to apply the information that we had learned earlier,” she said.

Baird works full time at Craigcrest Holsteins, in Arthur, Ont.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.