PDP Manager's Memo

October 2024 Vol. 1

Brought to you by Dairy's Professional Development Organization®

Opportunities to Learn

Herdsperson Conference

October 29, 30

Plover, Arlington, Wis.

BIOSECURITY, NUTRITION AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR TRANSITION on tap for session at the 2024 Herdsperson Conference. All sessions will be simultaneously translated into Spanish to ensure the entire team can learn from leading presenters including Dr. Keith Poulsen and Dr. Lautaro Rostoll-Cangiano. A panel of dairy producers will discuss the secrets to herd longevity including how to make culling decisions and genetic decisions emphasizing health traits, type characteristics and feed efficiency. Learn more and register here.

PDP Business Management & Advanced Finance Workshop

October 30-31

Sun Prairie, Wis.

LEARN NEW FINANCIAL AND MANAGEMENT SKILLS, THEN PUT THEM TO WORK to on your dairy. Register today for the Business Management & Advanced Finance Workshop with a focus on amplifying your HR management and financial literacy skills through interactive case studies and class discussions. Instructor Dick Wittman will cover focus areas including farm management proficiency, financial statements, cash flow budgeting, financial metrics and simulation, cost and managerial accounting, family business governance, and growth management. Learn more about the two-day course here.

Financial Literacy for Dairy®

Level One - Nov. 12-13 and Dec. 4-5

Level Two - Jan. 22-23, Feb. 5-6 and Feb. 26-27

Juneau, Wis.

THE ONLY FINANCIAL LITERACY PROGRAM DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR DAIRY will kick off 2024-25 sessions in November. PDP’s Financial Literacy for Dairy is a multi-level, multi-session program for dairy farmers, veterinarians, nutritionists and other agribusiness professionals with an understanding of financials and perspective to make better decisions for their business. Level One begins in November with a focus on goal setting, balance sheet principles, cash income statements and other core financial concepts. View the flyer and register here.

Carbon, Crops + Cows

November 12, 13, 14

Athens, Little Chute, Arlington, Wis.

UNLOCK YOUR DAIRY FARM’S SUSTAINABILITY POTENTIAL. Don’t miss the farmer-focused, one-day event designed to give you the tools and knowledge to measure and manage your farm’s sustainability metrics. The Carbon, Crops + Cows workshop will feature a team of experts to help you understand the potential and logistics of the carbon markets and how you can prepare and position your dairy for a more sustainable and profitable future. Learn more and register here .

Dairy Managers Institute®

December 10-11

Juneau, Wis.

BUILD MANAGEMENT SKILLS, STRENGTHEN TEAMS at the 2024 Dairy Managers Institute. The two-day, three-tier program features top trainers to help managers understand their leadership styles, improve coaching and communications skills and strengthen financial acumen — all with a goal of developing stronger dairy business teams. All three tiers will include simultaneous Spanish translation. Learn more and register here.

Managers Academy for Dairy Professionals®

January 7-9, 2025

Dallas, Texas

Save the date for January 7-9, 2025! They say everything's bigger in Texas, and PDP's Managers Academy for Dairy Professionals is about to discover why during three unforgettable days in Dallas. Don't miss out on new insights on managing your people, networking with peers from across the country and executive-level tours that will get you thinking outside the box. Full details are to be released soon. Click here to register for this January's exclusive training in the Lone Star state.

Cornerstone Dairy Academy®

March 11-12, 2024

Madison, Wis.

Join industry members from across the country as you build your leadership skills at this dynamic professional development training. Applications are due January 31, 2025, for the March 11-12, 2025 program. The event will be held at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis. This training is designed to provide continued education to an array of participants: college-age students, recent graduates pursuing dairy-related careers, individuals wanting to restructure their leadership skills and/or those who are at a crossroads in their dairy career. Complete the English or Spanish application today.

Federal Milk Marketing Orders Workshop

Session recording available now.

UNDERSTAND THE PROPOSED CHANGES TO FMMOs so that you can make an educated decision before voting later this year. Dairy economists from UW-Madison and Cornell University and a panel of highly respected industry experts representing producers and processors from around the country shared their perspectives on the proposed changes at the FMMO Workshop on September 18. As Dr. Charles Nicholson noted, dairy farmers and their cooperatives will vote on whether to accept the proposed changes once they are finalized in November or to eliminate pricing under FMMOs in their region—there’s no option to continue with the pricing arrangements we have now.

Click here to secure a copy of the workshop recording. You’ll learn these takeaways and more:

The USDA is proposing five key categories of changes to milk pricing – and it’s important to consider their impacts when taken collectively, not separately.
The impacts on farm milk prices and dairy product demand will vary by region of the country. Areas supplying a lot of milk for beverages will see higher farm milk prices. Areas supplying milk to make cheese, butter and powder have lower farm milk prices.
The impacts on farm milk prices will vary over time – they’ll be larger in the first couple of years after the new pricing rules begin.

Your Farm Your Footprint

Your farm is your livelihood, and Your Farm – Your Footprint™, the ﬁrst-of-its-kind, farmer-led sustainability initiative that empowers dairy farmers to know and understand their environmental footprint, offers solutions to shape the future of your farm. Dairy’s Foundation is the initiative’s first sponsor, with Nestlé sponsoring in part.

Identifying your farm’s carbon and greenhouse gas metrics is a critical first step, and with Your Farm – Your Footprint, participants have access to:

Easy-to-understand reporting accompanied by technical consulting during which one of our experts personally reviews your farm’s report with you and offers customized improvement recommendations. Your data is protected and won’t be shared with anyone else without your consent.
Opportunity to test-drive three sustainability measurement platforms, including FARM ES (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management - Environmental Stewardship), Cool Farm Tool, and COMET (CarbOn Management & Emissions Tool).
Ongoing practical learning and idea-sharing through a peer networking group specific to Your Farm – Your Footprint.

Learn more and sign up today at www. pdpw.org/your-farm-your-footprint/.

For Your Dairy

DON’T MISS AG RESCUE TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES! Fire responders, emergency medical technicians, fire, rescue and law enforcement personnel are all invited to attend Ag Rescue Training events that will provide critical information and training to support communities. Programs will be held in Marshfield, Wis., and hosted by the National Farm Medicine Center and partners. The courses include:

Oct. 25 – Train-the-Trainer Course
Oct. 25-26 – Ag Rescue Training
Oct. 24 – RF-DASH and Train-the Trainer

Learn more and register on the website.

KNOW THE NUMBERS OF PROPER FOOTBATH MANAGEMENT. An article from Ohio State Extension provides an overview of best practices for footbath practices for lameness prevention with several numbers to remember:

Each case of lameness costs more than $330 in lost production and other costs
A cow needs to step in a footbath a minimum of two times with each foot.
Footbaths should be a minimum of 10 feet long with a width of at least 20-24 inches.
Footbaths are effective for approx. 150 to 350 cow passes.
On average, each cow should pass through an effective footbath three times a week.

Learn more about these and other numbers in the full article.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF COLOSTRUM can deliver benefits to calf health, productivity and profitability. A recent episode of The Dairy Signal featured Dr. Donald Sockett and Dr. Ryan Breuer with research results and case studies from the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. They reviewed recent data and how it compares to the industry’s colostrum feeding recommendations that were developed 20+ years ago, a proposal for a new colostrum classification system, and shared several cases seen at the lab with implications for on-farm management practices and colostrum feeding systems. Watch the episode here.

HOW DOES A COW’S PERSONALITY IMPACT her adaptation to an automated milking system? Research published in the Journal of Dairy Science studied 48 primiparous Holstein dairy cows that were reviewed with a personality test and four different AMS training treatments. Results showed that exposing cows to the mechanics of the AMS before first milking may improve habituation and that providing concentrate alone during AMS training may not be effective enough to motivate cows to visit again. Read the full study to learn more.

For Your Business Mind

USE SWOT ANALYSIS TO SET AND REVISIT BUSINESS STRATEGY for your farm or dairy business. An article from UW-Extension provides a step-by-step process to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then use that analysis to set actionable goals. When creating a SWOT analysis, both the business leadership team and a group of key stakeholders should be engaged to ensure you are getting a broad perspective and feedback on internal views. Learn more about each step in the full article.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP STARTS WITH A COMMITMENT to continuous learning and growth. An Inc.com article outlines six behaviors demonstrated by servant leaders:

1. Demonstrate raw authenticity

2. Grow themselves and others

3. Value their people

4. Build communities

5. Provide direction and a way forward

6. Share their power and grow leaders

Learn more about each in the full article.

PROTECT YOUR COMPUTERS AND BUSINESS FROM MALWARE with a combination of policies, training and processes. Malware can be used to directly take money from accounts, capture information that can be used to set up new accounts, or steal company data and hold it for ransom. Steps to avoid malware include:

Don’t go it alone
Pay attention to update windows
Set up Multi-Factor Authentication
Create a strict backup policy and use it

Learn more steps and details in the article from Tobin Solutions.

The Dairy Signal

TIMELY NEWS, THREE DAYS A WEEK. Don’t miss The Dairy Signal® to connect with leading experts across dairy and agricultural industries to researchers at universities and government agencies to bring updates on the trends and topics that will affect your dairy business. The 60-minute sessions air every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with recorded episodes available at www.pdpw.org. Click here to tune in to archived sessions.

Presenters and topics covered recently include:

October 1

As producers open manure pits for fall application, join in for a conversation about safety concerns and gas exposure. Also learn about equipment safety tips with different types of manure spreaders.

Gerald Minor, chief, Pittsville Fire Department

October 2

Short on time? That doesn’t mean wellness isn’t still a priority. Learn tips to maximize health for dairy producers and busy families on the go.

Morgan Ekovich, owner and head trainer, Get Fit with ME LLC

October 3

Lameness is one of the top three diseases in U.S. dairy herds. Tune in for discussion of digital dermatitis, including ins and outs of the disease, prevention and treatment.

Dr. Dorte Doepfer, MSc, PhD, Professor at UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine

October 8

With fall officially here, it’s time to look ahead for a weather outlook into winter and even spring 2025. Tune in to hear what producers across the country should be preparing for in the months ahead.

Daryl Ritchison, director, North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network (NDAWN), and North Dakota state climatologist

October 9

Join in for an important update on national policy and other issues from the president and CEO of National Milk Producers Federation.

Gregg Doud, president and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation

October 10

Learn about the use of plasma in calf nutrition, including the pros and cons, the ages it can be fed to, different types of plasma and more.

Dave Wood, director of sales and technical support, Animix LLC

Dairy Currents

USDA TO FUND NEW INITIATIVES FOR SMALL AND MID-SIZED DAIRY BUSINESSES to develop, produce, market and distribute dairy products. Secretary Tom Vilsack announced $11.04 million in funding awarded to four Dairy Business Innovation Initiatives at California State University, Fresno, the University of Tennessee, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, and the University of Wisconsin. The initiatives will use the funding to provide technical assistance and sub-award funds to dairy farmers and businesses across their regions, supporting them with business plan development, marketing, and branding, as well as increasing access to innovative production and processing techniques to support the development of value-added products. Read more here.

USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNOLOGIES TO IDENTIFY, ADDRESS lameness issues in dairy cows is the focus of Dr. Gerard Cramer and graduate student Drew Swartz at the University of Minnesota. An article reviews how AI technologies can be used to measure cows' movements and generate locomotion scores. These technologies can enable more frequent scoring and free up humans for more complex labor tasks. They are also working on an algorithm that includes locomotion scoring, as well as data on hoof trimming, milk production, and cow demographics to help farmers quickly and efficiently identify cows with treatable lesions. Learn more here.

CONSUMER TRUST IN SCIENCE ABOUT FOOD AND NUTRITION continues to decline, according to the results of a survey conducted by the International Food Information Council (IFIC). Less than 40% of consumers strongly trust scientific information about food, diet and nutrition, with 79% perceiving that recommendations regarding what to eat and drink change frequently. The most trusted sources of information are food and nutrition scientists (55%), followed by medical doctors and nurses (51%), and registered dietitians (41%). Read more here.

Book Review

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE. A 30^th anniversary special edition of this classic leadership development book has been released. The book features the wisdom of the original 7 habits with additional takeaways on how they can be adapted by a new generation of leaders. Revisit the habits, including Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, Put First Things First, Think Win/Win, and more. Learn more here.

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