As dairy farmers, we are always making decisions to make our farms more productive, efficient and sustainable. One of the most important investments we can make to achieve all these goals is making a commitment to training every team member on the farm. 

Investing in training programs and learning opportunities not only builds the skills employees need for their jobs; it builds commitment among team members and has the potential to change the entire culture of a farm. Everyone has a desire to learn and grow, and I believe if we can help our people grow their knowledge, they will value their jobs, their role at our dairies and better understand the cows that are the foundation of our farms. When you raise the level of knowledge and education, your farm’s culture changes for the better.

I have experienced firsthand the impact of a commitment to lifelong learning in my own career and on my team at Grotegut Dairy in Newton, Wisconsin.

I was born and raised in a rural area of central Mexico. My grandfather had a small farm with cows and sheep, but growing up I wasn’t interested in helping on the farm. However, when I attended college, I realized the need and opportunity for professionals in agriculture and changed my major from business administration to agronomy.

I had the opportunity to come to Wisconsin through a college internship program with the University of Wisconsin – Madison and worked at Gold Star Farm in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. After college, I worked for five years at a Mexican company that imported products from Wisconsin for the dairy industry, then came to the U.S. to work another five years for an American-based company in Wisconsin.

I then decided to make the move to a dairy farm and worked a year as calf manager at Gold Star Farm, then moved to Grotegut Dairy in 2018 as a full-time general manager. Grotegut Dairy is a third-generation dairy farm, where we milk 3,100 cows and raise our own calves and heifers. I work with my husband, Eric Grotegut, and his family as well as more than 50 full-time employees.

I have attended a number of impactful training programs over the years. In fact, attending Cornerstone Dairy Academy, a three-pillar leadership program developed by Professional Dairy Producers (PDPW), was not only valuable for building communications and leadership skills, it really opened my eyes to what I was looking for in my career. It fed my passion to move from an industry role to hands-on farming.

I realized I am a “doer,” and in my past career roles, I found it was hard for me to make recommendations for a farm but not be directly involved in implementing those ideas. I wanted to be able to take a project from implementation to finish. 

One of my first priorities at Grotegut Dairy was to develop and implement a formal employee management and training program. We started with basics, like making employee reviews more standard, then realized we needed more training opportunities. We looked for areas where the farm was having the most challenges, such as cow comfort, and began finding training programs for our team members to build skills and learn new management practices and technologies.  

This focused approach has paid off in improvements in several areas, including raising heifers. Several years ago, we were sending our calves out of state, but now we are able to raise our heifers at home because we have people who are well trained to take care of them.

As our team has grown and evolved, the training programs have expanded too. Hands-on, specific programs like PDPW’s Calf Care Connection and Herdsperson Workshop are important, and yet we’re also looking for programs to enrich team members’ management skills. Many of our team have taken advantage of programs to help them learn the basics of their job responsibilities, and now they’re looking for the next opportunity to grow and develop as leaders. 

A commitment to training programs has also helped with our employee retention. If someone sees they can build their skills and move to a new role in the farm, they're more willing to stay. One of the things that has added value to our training program is PDPW’s simultaneous translation of many of their core programs. Since some of my team members speak Spanish as their native language, being able to learn and network in their native language helps them to feel more a part of the group – and have the confidence to talk to others. In these learning environments, they are more open to receiving new information about how to improve their work and accept constructive criticism. It also encourages them to share their own challenges and achievements. And of course, they love tours of other farms.

We take a long-term approach to training programs, reviewing the annual calendars from PDPW, extension, industry and other industry allies. By identifying the gaps at the dairy, the needs of individual team members and the farm’s vision, we can schedule the programs that will be most impactful. This planning process takes time and commitment, but it is important to ensure our training investment is well spent and that we have enough staff to cover jobs on the farm while co-workers are at training.

As dairy managers and owners, a commitment to lifelong learning is important to stay on top of advances in technology and understand what the consumer is expecting of us. We need to access this information to position ourselves for success in the marketplace, and sharing learning opportunities with our team members is the key for the success of our farms.

Rosario Ibarra is general manager of Grotegut Dairy Farm Inc. in Newton, Wisconsin. She is a graduate of Tecnológico de Monterrey – Campus Querétaro whose dairy career began with an intern partnership through the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Ibarra has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy and an MBA degree.

This column is contributed by Professional Dairy Producers (PDPW), which is the nation's largest dairy producer-led organization of its kind. PDPW focuses on producer professionalism, stakeholder engagement and unified outreach to share ideas, solutions, resources and experiences that help dairy producers succeed.