On-site training, farm visits and general education

Michigan Dairy producers have been under extreme financial pressure for several years in a row. Many farms have been forced to sell their cows and producers are under personal stress as well. In an effort to help producers, MSU Extension has been offering programing in dealing with farm stress for producers and agri-business personnel, including trainings held in the county.

Our Farm Business Management team and dairy educators have worked together to advise producers on financial decisions for their farms. In addition to regular programming and farm visits, educators have offered classes focused on profitability and cost cutting including “Making More Profit From the Parlor”, a one day class offered in St Johns that was well attended by local producers.

Another popular program that has been met with positive feedback is Spanish for Dairy Farmers. This program included 6 weeks of instruction for a limited class size. The classes were taught by a Spanish speaker to help participants learn common phrases used on the farm, as well as help with pronunciation and sentence structures.

Farm visits continue to provide support for local farmers to assess feeding systems or in some cases to include out farm business management colleagues to asses the financial strength of local operations.