Beef packers bridge the gap between producers and consumers, but even “the largest packer in the world” is nothing without its suppliers, John Gerber said.

It is fall and most of us are getting pretty excited for a paycheck. Come November, we'll be selling calves and putting money in the bank for the rest of the year. We budget, like most ranchers do, but then the skid steer broke, our main truck died and one of the kids needed her wisdom teeth out.

In a world of ever-expanding dairy operations and competitive milk markets, it is easy for farms and dairies to hyper-focus on the numbers. But Banner Ridge Farms in Platteville, Wisconsin, is taking a different approach: focusing on employees who can make their operation work smarter from the inside out.

Many ranchers struggle to remain profitable. After all, cattle are an agricultural commodity, so prices fluctuate based on national or global supply and demand. While these prices naturally fluctuate, the cost of fuel and equipment tends to steadily rise over time.

For only the second time in World Dairy Expo’s 52-year history, the Supreme Champion of the Junior Show and the Supreme Champion of World Dairy Expo were the same cow. Cutting Edge T Delilah, exhibited by Kyle Barton of Copake, New York, was named Grand Champion Brown Swiss and the 2018 Supreme Champion of both the junior and open shows.

In the ever-changing and ever-challenging dairy industry, the new Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program is a welcome sight for most in the industry as a way to manage or mitigate risk. Your participation in the program will likely be a topic of discussion with your ag lender in the upcoming months. What should you be prepared to talk about?

It’s become a tradition for the Progressive Dairyman team to scope out new products, ideas and innovations to share with readers following World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. The 2018 show, with the theme of “The Next Frontier,” had plenty to offer.

The two most recent generations to operate Ideal Dairy LLC in Hudson Falls, New York, have something in common. They have each entered the business during a turning point in the farm and propelled it forward to be successful.

For many years, it has been my passion to more fully understand and manage robotic milking systems. I have spent countless hours watching animal videos and staring at the computer screen looking at the data robotic systems provide. It has been close to an addiction.

Tariffs apparently weren’t a barrier to milk powder sales to Mexico, but the ongoing trade war did have a detrimental impact on overall dairy and hay sales to China in August. Dairy cattle exports were steady, but buyers are becoming more demanding.