The past year has confirmed one lesson for many of us in the dairy business: Not one of us holds a crystal ball to see the future. However, for many farming operations, a golden ticket is within reach.

If you do nothing else in 2020 to reduce expenses on your dairy, do this one thing: Implement a purchase order (PO) system.

The television series Undercover Boss prompts business owners and executives to leave the comfort of their offices for an up-close look at the day-to-day operations of their companies.

Subsistence farming, by dictionary definition, is “a system of farming that produces a minimum and often inadequate return to the farmer.” This is common practice in developing countries, but could that definition also be used to describe how many dairies in the U.S. have operated for the past several years? It’s as if we are in a first-world country that expects dairy farmers to survive on a third-world business model.

Whether it’s a piece of ground you’ve rented for years, one that’s been passed down in the family for generations or an acreage up for sale a few miles from the home farm, there seems to be a “more is better” mentality when it comes to land ownership and control.

“We are just going to hang on and hope for better days ahead.” How many times have you heard fellow dairy producers proclaim those words – or even uttered them yourself?

We are all feeling the pinch (or gut punch) of low milk prices these days, but the blow doesn’t have to be as bad as it seems. In fact, it is actually possible to make money right now at a Class III base price of $14 to $15 per hundredweight (cwt).

When I’m looking to generate more income for a dairy, the milking parlor is one of the first places I look to create cash flow. More often than not, I find facilities, cows and employees are under-utilized, leaving milk on the table you may not even realize is there.

Ask a dairyman what keeps him or her up at night, and chances are it will be one of these issues: How will I afford to keep renting land at sky-high rates? Who is going to milk my cows?