Dairy Profit Seminars Set for 2013 Empire Farm Days - Cowsmo

Dairy Profit Seminars Set for 2013 Empire Farm Days

Seneca Falls, NY – The DairyProfit Seminars held at the annual Empire Farm Days in Seneca Falls, NY, have become a regular stop for dairy producers, dairy farm staff and agribusiness professionals. The 2013 event is slated for August 6-8 at the 300-acre show grounds at Rodman Lott & Sons Farm.

The 2013 Dairy Profit Seminars will provide a portrait of the next generation, feature use of robotic milking technology and provide tools to measure and monitor cow comfort and ways to improve it. The seminars are a collaboration between Cornell’s PRO-DAIRY and DairyBusiness East magazine.

Each session starts at 10:30 am at the DairyProfit Seminar Center, in the same location as previous years, on the show grounds. The seminars are free and open to the public. They will be followed at noon by an industry update from the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council and a picnic lunch. A special Tuesday afternoon session on the topic of Polled Genetics sponsored by DairyBusiness Communications and the NY Holstein Association will commence at 12:30 pm. The Junior Dairy Leader graduation and presentation will follow the Wednesday seminars at 1:30 pm.

Tuesday, August 6, 10:30 am: A Portrait of the Next Dairy Generation

–  Diamond V Regional Sales Manager Kristy Pagel will kick off the panel with a presentation about communicating effectively in business transitions.  PRO-DAIRY’s Betsey Howland will then moderate a panel of three young dairy farmers who will tell their stories of how they have progressed in their farm businesses.

Pagel serves dairy producers, nutrition consultants, and feed mills across the state of Wisconsin.  She provides leadership on meeting facilitation, organizational structure, labor management, leadership development and overall communication techniques.  Her passion with assisting clients has gained her the role as a “trusted advisor” with many dairies across the Midwest.  Pagel’s activities also focus on creating strong industry network alliances to help dairy producers make informed business decisions.

Pagel is a passionate 5th-generation farm girl who has been involved with her family in the dairy industry for several years. In addition to her on-farm practical management experiences, she received a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, with an emphasis in Human Resources and Marketing from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay.

Kristy serves as Chair on the Board of Directors for the Kewaunee County Economic Development Corporation and chairs the Agriculture Committee. She is involved with the Kewaunee County Dairy Promotion Committee, Dairy Business Association, Professional Dairy Producers of WI, and promotes efforts involving Careers in Agriculture.

–  Panel moderator Betsey Howland is an Extension Support Specialist with the PRO-DAIRY Program at Cornell University. Betsey administers the Dairy Profit Monitor, an online, monthly profit and benchmark program measuring net milk income over feed costs. She also leads Dairy Activity Analysis Projects such as the cost of hauling manure, which will be completed this year.  Betsey co-facilitates five business-focused Dairy Profit Discussion Groups and is involved in the planning of the Academy for Dairy Executives. Betsey also assists with the New York State Junior Dairy Leader Program and the Dairy Fellows program in the Department of Animal Science. Betsey joined the PRO-DAIRY team in 2011. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Science from Cornell University.

–  Panelist Sonja Galley is the herd manager on her family’s dairy, Silver Spoon Farm, where they milk 65 registered Holsteins.  She is a 2006 graduate of Morrisville State and a 2008 graduate of Virginia Tech, where she majored in Dairy Science. While in school, she participated in dairy judging and dairy challenge in post- secondary and collegiate divisions.  After graduation she accepted a job as a herdsman at Conant Acres in Canton, ME.  Three years ago, she moved home to begin the transition process on the home farm.

–  Panelist Diesel Hitt is the managing partner at Windsong Dairy in Adams Center, NY. He did not grow up on a dairy farm, but became very interested in dairy at a young age while working on the farm of a family friend in Boonville, NY. Hitt attended SUNY Cobleskill and then graduated from Cornell in 2007. In the fall of 2007, he had the opportunity to work for Bill Morgan and Jon Gilbert at Scipio Springs Dairy in Union Springs, NY. Hitt spent two years there, learning a great deal about farm and herd management. In the fall of 2009, the three formed a new partnership with the purchase of Windsong Dairy, LLC. With a great team of people, the farm partners manage 600 milking cows and 1,500 acres of cropland.

–  Panelist Luke Getty is the owner, operator of Main-Drag Holsteins LLC, a purchased feed operation in eastern New York. Getty purchased the herd of 90 lactating cows and 70 heifers from his parents in July 2011. Since then, the herd was expanded to 180 lactating cows and 110 heifers. Expansion was facilitated by minor facility renovations, the rental of a neighboring facility for dry cows and heifers, and the hard work and dedication of employees. Regardless of size, the goal has always been to efficiently produce high quality food, from healthy, high-producing registered cattle. The success of the dairy as a purchased feed operation is largely attributed to the working relationship Getty formed with his parents. Without the reliable supply of feed this relationship provides, purchasing feed with the escalating prices of the open-market, would be difficult.

12:30 pm: Polled Genetics Panel

Dr. Kimberly Morrill, a Cornell Cooperative Extension Regional Dairy Specialist in Northern New York and a Past-President of the Red & White Dairy Cattle Association, moderates the panel. Panelists include:

–  Bryan Quanbury of Dairy Bulls Online, a marketing and distribution service for breeders, in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada

–  John Burket of Burket Falls Farm, East Freedom, PA, with 100 Registered Holsteins, 80 percent polled. Burket is a member of the Holstein Genetic Advancement Committee.

–  Nate Faus, Rollen N’s Dairy Herd Manager, Rock Stream, NY, with red and white polled Holsteins.

 Wednesday, August 7, 10:30 am: Robotic Milking. Cows in Control

–  Larry Tranel, Iowa State University, will present his research on the cost of robotics for small farm, and moderate a panel of farmers who use robots successfully.

Iowa State University’s Larry Tranel is interested in milking systems and has specialized in low cost parlors and robotic milking dairy facilities, rotational grazing, financial management and millionaire model farm systems. He was a dairy farm management agent for the University of Wisconsin Extension from 1989 to 1999 and since then has worked as a dairy field specialist for Iowa State University Extension.

–  Panelists Glenn and Sheryl Taylor transitioned Tayl-Wind Farm, LLC in Cassville, NY to a robotic milking system in June 2012. Glenn and his parents built the original freestall barn and installed a Boumatic double-6 milking parlor in 1982 after relocating from central Massachusetts. By 2011, milking and related chores took two people about 12 hours each day for the 200-cow herd. Neither Glenn or Sheryl was interested in growing the herd enough to justify a new parlor with milking labor still be required. They started touring herds in NY where the Lely robotic milking system was used and became taken with the cow culture and management information it provided. They also appreciated that the system would allow them to maintain herd size and retrofit their current facilities, while continuing to milk in the parlor. Glenn and Sheryl are graduates of the dairy management program at Cornell University.

–  Panelist Chuck Deichmann of Alfred, NY installed his first robotic milker in July 2007. He operates two units for his 90-cow organic, rotational grazed herd.  Deichmann will share his experience in transitioning to automatic milking systems.  He’ll discuss the management adjustments he made and the practical aspects of producing milk in an automated system. “Robotics can fit different situations and dairies of different sizes,” he said. “I have been able to participate in off-farm activities because of the labor savings and scheduling flexibility the robots have given me, along with more time to spend with family.”

–  Panelist Bruce Hatfield of Hatfield Farms, LLC in Scipio Center purchased a robotic system in 2009. The farm was expanded to support the return of his son Chris. Bruce, his wife Marcia, and Chris grew the herd to 240 cows, but did not want to add non-family labor. “We looked at parlor technology. It’s fascinating, but still 50-year-old technology. We asked ‘is that really the next step?’ We thought ‘robotics is really new. In another 25 years it will prove itself.’ We think it’s one way to milk cows in the future,” Hatfield said. Hatfield has served on the boards of directors of Cayuga County DHI, Scipio Center Planning Board, and is a Dairylea annual meeting delegate.

Thursday, August 8, 10:30 am: Cow Comfort. Measure and Monitor for Impact

–  PRO-DAIRY’s Kathy Barrett will moderate the panel on cow comfort. Lindsay Collings will kick off the program with a regional comparison of cattle lameness and differences in cow comfort between NYS and other areas of the country. Miner Institute’s Rick Grant will present information on the economics of cow comfort, PRO-DAIRY’s Curt Gooch will focus on  modifications that improve cow comfort and Diamond V’s Bill Stone will share what he looks for when visiting a barn to determine if cows are comfortable from a “visual, once over perspective.”

Kathy Barrett is a Senior Extension Association with PRO-DAIRY. Her expertise is in dairy management and production education and she provides leadership for the Dairy Profit Discussion Group program and focuses on group facilitation training and dairy education and outreach. Dairy Profit Discussion Groups are small groups of dairy producers, 10 to 15 farms, which meet to discuss business performance and the management practices. These groups are made up of producers who have similar management intent or production practices, and are based on mutual respect, trust, and confidentiality of each member. Barrett’s past experience with producer-driven discussion groups suggests that farmer-to-farmer learning is an excellent way to promote enhanced business and production management practices. Value comes from drawing on other farmers’ experiences to motivate participants to make changes on the farm that impact profitability, productivity and quality of life.

–  Panelist Lindsay Collings is the C.O.W.S. Project Manager for Novus International, Inc. She received her BS in Animal Biology from University of British Columbia in 2008 and her MS in Animal Science from the University of British Columbia in 2011.

Collings grew up in Vancouver, BC, Canada. After graduation, Collings completed an internship with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the research station in Agassiz, BC. She conducted a study that investigated the effects of feeding colostrum ad libitum on intake and the immune status of newborn calves. Collings also tested the effects of formic acid as a preservation agent to reduce bacterial counts in colostrum that was published in the Canadian Journal of Animal Science.

Collings worked as a research coordinator and student manager while living at the UBC Dairy Education and Research Centre. She assisted with several research trials that focused on calf management and nutrition, transition cows and lameness. Her MS thesis focused on the effects of overstocking at the feed bunk and restricting feed access time on feeding behavior and competition in lactating cows and was published in the Journal of Dairy Science.

Upon completing her Masters, Collings joined Novus in May 2011 to assist in the implementation of the C.O.W.S. program. As part of the program, she conducts cow comfort assessments on over 100 dairy farms per year across the US. Through this program she hopes to help producers remove limitations on milk production by improving cow comfort and well-being.

–  Panelist Bill Stone grew up on a beef and hog farm in southeastern Wisconsin. After obtaining a veterinary degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987, he practiced veterinary medicine for three years in a dairy practice in south central Wisconsin. Bill entered a graduate program at Cornell University in 1990, with a focus on dairy cattle nutrition and management. After completing his doctoral program he operated his own dairy nutritional/management consulting business based from and primarily serving central New York.

Bill worked in a veterinary herd health/nutrition position with the PRO-DAIRY program at Cornell University from 1998 to 2007 before joining Diamond V as director of technical services and research for the eastern US. His primary areas of interest are forage management, all aspects of dairy cattle nutrition, methods to improve ration consistency, and identification of bottlenecks on dairies.

–  Panelist Rick Grant is President of the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute in Chazy in northern New York.  Grant was raised on a dairy farm near Potsdam, NY. He received a BS in Animal Science from Cornell University, a PhD from Purdue University in ruminant nutrition, and held a post-doctoral position in forage digestion research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1989 to 1990. From 1990 to 2003, Rick was a professor and extension dairy specialist in the Animal Science Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Since February of 2003, he has been President of the William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute, a privately funded educational and research institute focused on dairy, equine, and crop management. Grant was the recipient of the 2010 Pioneer Hi-Bred Forage Award for outstanding research and educational efforts in forage management. Grant has served as editor for the Journal of Dairy Science, president of the Midwestern section of ADSA/ASAS, chair of the production division of ADSA, program chair for the annual meetings of ADSA and ASAS, and board member of the Northeast Ag and Feed Alliance.

–  Panelist Curt Gooch, P.E. is a Dairy Facility and Waste Management Engineer in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. Gooch heads up the dairy facilities and waste management component of Cornell’s PRO-DAIRY program. He has undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees from the University of Maryland at College Park.

Gooch conducts applied research with the goal of furthering the understanding of dairy housing and waste management systems and their effects on dairy animals, farm profitability, and the environment. He is also responsible for the development of educational and training programs for dairy housing and waste management systems. Gooch has authored over 180 papers, popular press articles, and Web site publications since coming to Cornell in 1998.

Curt is an active member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Alpha Epsilon, the Dairy Practice Council, the National Frame Builders Association, and the Hoof Trimmers Association. He also serves on the National Milk Producers Federation environmental task force as the northeastern regional environmental scientist.  Gooch will provide local examples of modifications that focused on improving cow comfort and their results.

Empire Farm Days is pleased to present the annual Dairy Profits Seminars as part of the Northeast’s largest outdoor agricultural trade show with more than 600 representatives of agricultural institutions and organizations. For more information, visit www.empirefarmdays.com or call 877-697-7837.

 

 


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