Oct. 24 2024
The Dairy Margin Coverage (DMC) program is a “safety net” program supported by the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, also known as the farm bill
Oct. 11 2023
Transitioning family farms is a process that takes time and sometimes can come to a standstill
June 29 2023
If you know me, you likely know I am originally from Argentina. One characteristic of people from Argentina is that they frequently use metaphors to describe circumstances
April 10 2023
Financial risk and resiliency are topics on everyone’s mind. These issues leap into the forefront during tax season
March 15 2023
The thought of creating a business plan for your farm can be daunting, but this document serves several important purposes. For starters, it may be required by a lender when applying for financing. It...
Jan. 30 2023
One element of farm profitability is generating more revenue from the possessions you already own
Aug. 10 2022
Inflation seems to be everywhere in the economy today. The Consumer Price Index, a broad-based measure of inflation, has risen by nearly 9% over the last 12 months
Aug. 1 2022
For New York dairy farmer Skip Hardie, the last several years can be summed up in one statement. “Our farm went through financial hell for the last six-plus years as I'm sure a lot of your listener
July 8 2022
dairy producers are seeing record milk prices due to strong worldwide dairy consumption and milk production not quite able to keep up with that demand. Inflation and many world events are painting an
April 18 2022
Dairy farming has always been a capital-intensive business. There are a lot of fixed investments required to run a dairy farm as detailed in my March 2022 column
March 30 2022
In just two years, Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) transformed itself from selling over one-half of its members’ milk to third-party processors to processing two-thirds of its own milk
Sept. 2 2021
The combination of higher feed costs and falling milk prices induced the largest payments so far this year for USDA’s dairy insurance program
Sept. 2 2021
When considering the acquisition of a long-term asset, a farmer is analyzing a capital investment. Dairy farms have multiple and diverse situations in which a capital investment needs to be evaluated
March 11 2021
Many farm families need their farm assets to fill three buckets: business assets, retirement assets, and inheritance assets
March 1 2021
Every business likely knows its cost of production, and a dairy farm is no different
Feb. 22 2021
While bank standards for assessing loans haven’t changed, the risks associated with dairy operations certainly have changed during the pandemic
Feb. 18 2021
If volatility has been the defining characteristic of the dairy industry during the last few decades, 2020 was one for the record books
Feb. 18 2021
Leaving potential money on the table is something no farmer wants to do. Most often, we hear this fear in terms of risk management — it’s easy to put off locking in milk prices, or even feed...
Feb. 11 2021
“Three questions can come from this view of the ag cycle,” said Kevin Bernhardt, extension farm management specialist and University of Wisconsin-Platteville professor
Dec. 31 2020
Recently, I attended one of the many webinars available these days. By the end of the presentation, the speaker mentioned that the debt at a dairy can sometimes escalate to $12,500 per cow