Completed Project Report


Success for Small Beginning Dairy Farmers

  • Award Amount: $31,797
  • Regional Center: North Central Extension Risk Management Education Center
  • Grant Program: 2009 Unrestricted Grants
  • Project Director: Victor Cabrera
  • Email: vcabrera@wisc.edu
  • Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Project Overview

This project trained 200 small beginning dairy farmers and helped them to apply strategic decision-making regarding financial risks via several workshops across Wisconsin. During workshops follow-ups were established. To facilitate the adoption of new financial risk management strategies, part of the project involved the creation of two user-friendly computer decision-making systems (the Wisconsin dairy ratio benchmarking tool and the decision support system for dairy farm expansion) which are being actively being used as instruments of discussion,learning, and decision-making. The Agriculture Financial Advisor (AgFA©) dataset is the foundation of these computer tools. This project has met the need Wisconsin farmers had and now Wisconsin dairy farmers count with tools specifically designed for their conditions. Evaluation of the project indicate that all participants have found the tools and curricula developed useful for practical farm decision-making, that more than 500 visitors every month explore these online tools, that at least 40 farmers have made decisions using the tools, and the two more important sources of information for farmers in Wisconsin (Cooperative Extension and Technical Colleges) have adopted the tool and curricula for their trainings.

Number of Participants: 200

Outcomes

Project Steps

PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

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EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

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REPORTS & EVALUATIONS

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DELIVERY AREA

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