DairyCOPs: Measure It, Manage It
ANDY ANDREWS
Editor
LANCASTER (Lancaster Co.) When it comes
to running a dairy farm, “you have to be able to
measure it to manage it,” said Brad Hilty, senior ex
tension associate with Penn State Dairy Alliance.
DairyCOPs, or Dairy Cost of Production Ana
lyzer, could be just the tool.
Hilty spoke to several dairy producers during a
DairyCOPs Workshop for dairy owners and opera
tors in early November at the Farm and Home
Center.
The DairyCOPs program is simple: how much
does it cost a dairy farmer to produce 100 pounds of
milk?
Hilty noted that there are several key items to the
program. A producer needs to look at the feed, a
“big chunk of the production cost,” he noted, in ad
dition to labor and overhead.
Those elements are inputted via computer to a
spreadsheet. Producers can compare, through the
DairyCOPs program, how they fare compared to
other producers.
One spreadsheet example looked at how Lancas-
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Brad Hilty, standing, instructs Diane and
Sam Seller, Upperco, Md. at the recent
DalryCOPs Workshop at the Farm and Home
Center. Photo by Andy Andrews, editor
ter County dairy farmers were doing. “They can
look at the weak spots in the operation, or the
strong points, and see how they’re doing,” said
Hilty.
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