Dairy producers are constantly looking for ways to increase profitability, especially in times of low milk prices. Milk is the main product of the majority of U.S. dairy herds, and its volume and quality is directly associated with the farm’s gross income.

What’s the big deal?Out of more than 3 million bulk milk pickup samples (Grade A and B) tested per year, fewer than 500 are positive today. That means fewer than one in 6,000 positives. Twenty years ago, about 3,000 samples were positive.

During the summer of 2015, the price of milk protein dropped below the price of butterfat for the first time in quite a while (Figure 1). In fact, the price of milk protein has lost more than half its value from where it was in early 2014, when U.S. protein exports were at an all-time high.

Today, dairy farmers have access to a plethora of data about their cattle. Important information can be gleaned from data management systems, DHI records, pedigree information and genomic evaluations.

Dairy farm management reaches across several areas on the farm, leaving dairy producers to manage not only cows, crops and markets but also quite possibly the greatest asset on the farm: people.

The only constant is change – and how dairy farmers handle change is critical to the future success of their operations. Whether change is seen as good or bad, it always presents opportunities. The question is: Will you capitalize on them?

“Lack of planning will eventually adversely affect – if not even cause you to lose – all that you and your family have worked so hard to gain and preserve.”

It's no secret that dairy producers are facing a steep deterioration in milk prices. Class III milk futures have fallen about 45 percent from a peak of $24 per hundredweight in 2014. Though this decline is consistent with milk price cycles, the drop is more pronounced than usual in monetary terms.

You have all heard the expression “30,000-foot view.” Commentators often use this phrase when explaining something in a very broad sense. Recently, my wife and I decided to take our four daughters on their very first plane ride. The anticipation of the event was so thick in the days that led up to it that you could cut it with a knife.

The Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), a part of the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996 (ADAA), has been amended by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to better regulate how antibiotics deemed medically important for human use are utilized in livestock.