Great Lakes Dairy Sheep Symposium - the Department of Animal ...

data for 2003. Each producer was offered a stipend for his or her time and efforts. Farmers were
then contacted by phone and appointments were then set up for a researcher to visit the farm to
gather the financial data. Farmers were then paid for their participation.
The data that was collected included farm receipts and expenses, processed product
receipts and expenses, crop production, milk production, quantities of product produced,
inventoried, and sold, markets where sold, and prices. Balance sheets were also compiled to
measure changes in accounts payable, accounts receivable, inventories of feed, animals, and
product, and value of farm and processing assets and liabilities. Distinctions were made on the
expenses and receipts as to what was considered farm production and what was considered part
of the processing sector. Farm debts were applied on a percentage of assets assigned to the farm
for processing. For example if 10% of building use was for processing, product storage, and
sales, then 10% of long term debt was assigned to the processing sector. Collecting data in this
manner permitted the researchers to examine the financial performance of farm and processing
sectors individually to provide a fair comparison.
The data was analyzed at Cornell University by Pro-Dairy with the use of software used
to analyze and produce the Cornell University Dairy Farm Summary each year. A few
modifications were incorporated to account for the enterprise accounting approach. All milk
used in processing was “sold” by the farming enterprise to the “processing” enterprise at market
prices. The enterprise analysis approach enabled us to ask which business was most profitable
and, furthermore, is the farm better off from specialization.
In all, 27 farms were involved in the study from Wisconsin, New York, and Vermont. Of
these farms, 10 farms were small ruminant, with 7 goat producers and 3 sheep producers. There
are two problems with the data presented below. For one, 10 farms is not a very large sample
and it becomes difficult to draw any major conclusions. For two, the sample is not random, with
only farms willing to participate in the study involved.
Farm Descriptions
The study results presented in Table 1 are from 7 goat and 3 sheep farms. Farmers
reported “farming” for an average of 10 years and “processing” for an average of 6 years. One
farmer had been involved in processing for 16 years. The average farm had 31 acres of pasture
and 26 acres of crops. One farm had a minimum of 3 acres. The farms averaged 87 producing
animals with a maximum of 300. The average was influenced by 2 farms with more than 200
head. Milk production ranged from 163 to 2300 lbs per animal with the higher production going
to the goats.
Milk production ranged from 12,000 lbs. to more than 332,000 lbs., averaging a bit more
than 66,000; quite a range of farm production. Of this milk, not all was processed. Some was
sold to other farmers, markets, or on-farm milk sales. Cheese was the most popular product,
with 8 farms averaging 5867 lb. of cheese. One farm produced fluid milk and 1 farm produced
yogurt.
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