Structure, Costs, and Technology Used on U.S. Dairy Farms

Structure, Costs, and Technology Used on U.S. Dairy Farms

by Jeffrey Gillespie, Eric Njuki, and Angel Terán

The milk production segment of the U.S. dairy industry has experienced significant change over the past two decades. This study uses USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) dairy version data (and other USDA data) to examine changes in farm structure, production costs, and technology adoption and to compare dairy farms by size and production region over the past two decades. This report addresses how the U.S. dairy farm structure has changed over the past two decades and how the structure differs by size of the operation and by U.S. region.

Keywords: Dairy sector, milk production, dairy farms, dairy herd size, commodity costs and returns, technology adoption, farming, cost of production

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• Entire Report
• Report summary