``Effective use of the business and production management tools is a major barrier to profit and production growth of dairy farms in New York,'' said project leader Tom Overton, assistant director of Pro-Dairy. 

This project creates a program designed to promote more effective use of these tools and enhance the dairy industry in New York through the creation of a number of discussion groups that represent the diversity in geography and production management system that characterizes the New York dairy industry.

Agribusiness professionals and Cooperative Extension educators serve as discussion group coordinators.  Dairy farmer discussion groups identify specific goals for their groups that are consistent with the overall goals of the NY Center for Dairy Excellence.

Through participation in these groups and adoption of tools that enable benchmarking of progress in dairy production management and key metrics relating to profitability, progress of participating farms will be measured and success stories captured as examples of the potential for this approach to effectively enhance dairy farm profitability.  Successes of this program will be leveraged to broadly influence the mindset of the NY dairy industry in order to promote long-term profitability, project leaders said.

To learn more about the Dairy Profit Discussion Groups Program, click here.

To learn more about Pro-Dairy, click here