Dairy farming and baseball are very similar. In both baseball and dairy farming you have to learn the fundamentals and apply them every time you step on the field.

When we lived at our previous house, I wanted to build a garage. The building that was supposed to be our garage, a small barn-like 1930s-era building, ceased being a garage after a small earthquake shifted the foundation so that the sliding doors no longer opened wider than a few feet.

As we finish harvest and start moving towards spring, most farmers’ thoughts turn toward planting. It is a natural, seasonal process of renewal on the farm. Before planting, though, there needs to be planning.

Wright’s Dairy Farm near North Smithfield, Rhode Island, is a small, family-run, 140-cow dairy. The dairy sits on 90 acres, and the family rents 150 acres to grow corn silage on. What sets this dairy apart from most is that they process their milk and sell it in a little store right on their property.

The U.S. dairy industry with its cycles of boom and bust makes us all wonder if times will ever return to when we may enjoy the comfort and security of a stable milk price. Blame it on federal milk pricing policy; blame it on overproduction; blame it on the economy; blame it on the weather.

“Grass-fed milk is a viable niche market. A lot of producers I have spoken with were using pasture-based as a way to potentially market their milk as a value-added product. Pasture has to be a major component of an organic system, so organic producers would be interested in this,” says Mat Haan, who is the coordinator of the Pasture-Based Dairy Project at Michigan State University.

For a number of years, entertainer Jeff Foxworthy has related to rural folks with his “You might be a redneck if ….” and David Letterman has become notorious for his “Top 10” list. In combining those concepts, my interactions with dairy graziers over the years have led to my “Top ten reasons you might be a seasonal pasture-based dairy farmer if …”

Do you want to improve working conditions on your farm, but aren’t sure what’s most important to employees? Don’t think you can afford to? Don’t know where to start?

The success of farming operations is based on teamwork by the parties involved. By working together, you can often accomplish more than when you work as individuals.

Profitability is a key measure analyzed in the Dairy Farm Summary (DFS), published by four Northeast Farm Credit associations. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2009, the DFS has presented individual herd data averaged in a benchmark since 1979. The 2009 report is a healthy 48-page summary that explores various aspects of financial results for 540 dairy farms across eight Northeastern states.