Dairy Enterprise Economics from Ohio Producers

Mr. Don Breece, Farm Management Specialist, OSU Extension Center at Lima 

For 12 years dairy farm financial information and enterprise data have been collected from Ohio farms participating in Extension and Farm Business Planning and Analysis programs. These farms use the FINPACK computer program for analysis. There data are also included on a national data base located at the Center of Farm Financial Management, University of Minnesota. The data base is called FINBIN and is found at: www.cffm.umn.edu. Here is a summary of Ohio data (from 10 to 16 farms per year) for the past 5 years. More complete details may be found in the Ohio Farm Business Summary 2004 - a copy is located at local Extension offices.

Table 1. Net returns for Ohio dairy farms.1

 
Averages
 
High Profit Third
Year
Feed ($/cwt milk)
Return ($/cow)
Year
Feed ($/cwt milk)
Return ($/cow)
2000
6.95
235
2000
6.47
539
2001
7.52
630
2001
5.92
1037
2002
6.94
261
2002
6.07
665
2003
7.24
33
2003
7.78
609
2004
7.81
547
2004
7.47
1065
 
 
 
 
 
 
5 yr average
 
341
5 yr average
 
783

1Includes replacement costs and opportunity costs for home grown feeds (N = 10 to 16/yr for Ohio); MN 5 year averages (FINBIN Data; N = 1923); feed cost average = $6.72/cwt milk, and average net returns = $485/cow.