Iowa State University conducted a recent survey of dairy producers – both large and small – in the Hawkeye State. The university asked producers a number of questions related to dairy farm management, their facilities and their plans for the future in the dairy business. Responses were collected in the spring of 2012 and published late fall. Progressive Dairyman requested ISU extension dairy specialists compare their results to nationwide trends. Click here to see their full results.
ISU Dairy Team: This survey reveals similarities between Iowa and the rest of the country in areas such as breed type, variety of operation size, production levels, milk quality, milk marketing options and a shift toward the use of more custom operators. Management and technology practices are similar too, but milking frequency is probably higher in other states.
Q. How does this survey show how Iowa is unique from the rest of the country?
ISU Dairy Team: The Iowa dairy industry is still predominately smaller farms. Typically small- and medium-sized farms have more land base, allowing them to do cash cropping, especially with current economic times.
Q. What was one of the most surprising positive responses from the survey?
ISU Dairy Team: We were encouraged to see the percent of children interested in continuing the farm. There’s a high percent planning to bring family back into operation as well as transfer the dairy to next generation.
A high percentage of respondents really like the quality of life, and they state that the industry has improved during the past five years, even though economic situations have tightened. We were also pleasantly surprised to see a percent expecting to update calf and heifer facilities in the next 15 years.
Q. What were the more troubling responses?
ISU Dairy Team: Our concerns include:
• Lack of participation in community organizations and not having strong opinions on current dairy issues
• Growth in dairy operation herd size in Iowa has remained stagnant since 2006 with most operations below 250 head. 23 percent of operations are less than 50 head, 36 percent from 50 to 99 head and 26 percent have 100 to 250 cows for both 2006 and 2012. There has been limited growth in larger operations.
• 82 were neutral (40 percent) or disagreed (42 percent) that Iowa’s dairy industry was stable.
• Many disagreed that we needed to expand dairies to feed the growing world population.
Q. How will you be using this information in the future?
ISU Dairy Team: This survey helped us to realize the impact of young producers on the industry, so our focus will be providing education to that group. We’ve identified what educational topics to focus on, including calf and heifer facilities. We still have a good percentage in tie-stall facilities. We’ve also found a lack of knowledge in areas such as manure management and business structure.
Participants get much of their information from magazines and consultants. And we were surprised to learn that nutrition consultants were higher ranked than veterinarians as an information source. This helped us recognize that we also need to be targeting efforts in educating ag professionals.
Same, different or unique?
In the following set of questions, Progressive Dairyman asked Iowa State University Extension Dairy Specialist Leo Timms to respond whether Iowa is the same, different or unique compared to the U.S. in the survey’s recent findings:
• Dairy operators are primarily male between the age of 40 and 60
TIMMS: This is very similar to the ag census of 2007, so Iowa is similar to nation. What is exciting is that the average age of dairy farmers is less than some other ag enterprises and that 20 percent of operators are less than 40 years of age.
• Half of operators have an education level no greater than high school.
TIMMS: This is a little surprising, but with 50 percent or so being more than 50 years old, it makes sense and is probably similar nationally. It would be interesting to break the data up by age or decade. I would suspect a higher percent in the last 30 years have gone to college.
Also, we have a lot of these farms with older owners who have sons and daughters at home working who went to college, but we didn’t ask the question to get at that.
I would guess Iowa is unique. Western states are predominately larger operations, where operators typically have some level of continued education in management positions. Smaller operations and Mennonite-owned farms may have influenced this statistic for Iowa.
• More than half of dairy operations have a spouse working off-farm
TIMMS: Our data says 35 percent have a spouse working off-farm, and that has gone down since 2005. I was surprised and thought this would be higher. However, with smaller operations and, again with our percentage of Amish and Mennonite, maybe this isn’t too surprising. I’m not sure how this compares to the nation, but I’d suspect we have a lower percent working off farm.
• There has been limited growth in larger operations or a shift in operation size
TIMMS: We’ve seen a little shift but not much. I believe this is similar to national trends over the past five years. Certainly the economic issues of 2008-2010 and the tight margins even now have slowed down growth and expansion. But yet, a third of our producers said they will expand as much as 25 percent in the next few years.
I expect Iowa is different in this area. I think in the past 10 years we have seen herd growth in the southern High Plains and western states, but it may have been more limited in the past three to five years. We did not see this drastic growth except for in northwest Iowa.
• More than half of operations graze
TIMMS: This may be close national trends, but I’m sure the variation between states in this is large (for example: Vermont vs. California). Also, I’d really say only about 28 percent truly graze. 32.9 percent said “minimally graze,” and I would count them more toward no grazing. We did not specify between cows or heifers. I would suspect a large portion of grazing is heifers or late-lactation cows. This may be similar to eastern U.S. operations, but not similar to southern operations.
• The average somatic cell count was 233,000
TIMMS: This is about the national average for SCC with many states around this average. There are two or three major dairy states above and quite a few states slightly over this. Iowa has always been a leader in the Midwest. Almost all states have made great progress. What’s exciting is the national average has dropped to near this level.
• Operators have updated cow housing facilities as compared to milking parlor facilities
TIMMS: I believe this is similar nationally, and it makes sense. Producers are always updating different housing facilities but have only one milking facility that they build to have a longer useful life. There is a general trend of moving out of tiestalls across the U.S. and utilizing freestall facilities.
• Total acreage for a dairy operation, on average, has increased by 6 percent
TIMMS: I’m not sure how this compares nationally (maybe a little higher as we tend to purchase more land here). One question we didn’t ask directly, but I would guess is that with higher commodity prices (corn and beans) we have more producers who are using some of their acreage for cash crops instead of putting it all to the dairy as they did in the past when prices were low.
• Full-time dairy workers log more than 50 hours per week
TIMMS: This is similar to national statistics and not surprising. Much of the full-time help wants to work expanded hours, especially immigrant labor (although that is not most of the hired labor in our survey). I believe there is lots of work on smaller farms, and people are willing to work longer and more hours. PD
Walt Cooley
Editor
Progressive Dairyman magazine
