AgProud.com features Winrock senior program manager
AgProud.com, a news site that covers farming and livestock, featured Winrock’s Jon Winsten in an article headlined: “Grazing: Economies of scale to lower overhead costs.”
Winsten, a senior program manager on the Ecosystem Services team, shared information about a three-pronged strategy that puts cows out to graze well-managed pasture forages, focuses on labor efficiency and takes advantage of economies of scale to minimize overhead costs and maximize milk production.
Winsten has been working with farmers and financial analysts for Winrock’s Wallace Center projects, Grassland and Facilitating Low-Overheard Dairy Grazing for the Upper Midwest, to develop representative financial statements for an innovative type of dairy farming that reduces the amount of farm infrastructure but increases herd size.
“His financial analysis, using milk and feed prices over the past 10 years, has shown that the average net farm income, after paying an acceptable salary to the owner/operator, tends to be around $1.40 per cwt in the LHLO [large herd, low overhead] dairy grazing system. Winsten sees the LHLO dairy grazing system as an opportunity for flexibility, with less investment tied up in dairy-specific infrastructure. When milk prices are low, a dairy could opt to shift to dairy beef or to raise heifers, rather than focus on maximizing milk production and adding cows.”
Click here to read the full article on AgProud.com.
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