Many dairy businesses today are utilizing dairy advisory teams as sound management tools for improved idea generation, enhanced communication and superior decision-making. However, some teams aren’t as efficient as they could be and become a social hour more than an effective business meeting. If you have a dairy team in place, take a minute to look around the table at the various team members and assess the cost of having that team in place. If you have eight team members meeting for 1½ hours every quarter, that’s 48 hours.

Since dairies come in all shapes, sizes and profit levels, it is nearly impossible to predict what profitability “looks like” at a glance. Is the most profitable business the one with the highest production? Nicest cows? Best reproductive numbers? Most land base? Healthiest heifers? What profits “look like” can vary somewhat from dairy farm to dairy farm – but studying a variety of dairy farm businesses over time can help to distinguish patterns for higher profits on dairies. This area of “profit patterns” has been the focus of recent Penn State research.