Every environment has unique opportunities to succeed and overcome production issues. These include feed costs, environmental stressors, health challenges unique to geographical areas and local or regional economic climate. Operational resiliency relies on our ability to address challenges.

While training takes many forms and varies greatly from one dairy to the next, two common goals among producers are to increase employee engagement and to grow employee skill sets.

In the mid-to-late 2000s, dwindling university dairy herds and dairy programs in the Southwest led Dr. Mike Tomaszewski from Texas A&M and Dr. Robert Hagevoort from New Mexico State University (NMSU), along with Dr. Bob Collier, previously with the University of Arizona, to develop a program that provides university students with a hands-on dairy education to prepare them for careers in the dairy industry.

Using new fitness traits like heat tolerance and grazing behavior, Milt Thomas, a department of animal science professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is determined to help improve beef cattle systems in South Texas.

Drought has affected large swaths of the U.S. in recent years. Do we need to consider drought moving forward when making decisions about carrying capacity on farms and ranches? 

Maili Drachman is the co-owner and operator of J&C Ranch. They run a small herd of Scottish Highland cattle on native pasture.