Biomedical subjects

L W Tauer

Publications and source records attributed to L W Tauer.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Dairy farm cost efficiency.

A stochastic cost equation was estimated for US dairy farms using national data from the production year 2000 to determine how farmers might reduce their cost of production. Cost of producing a unit of milk was estimated into separate frontier (efficient) and inefficiency components, with both components estimated as a function of management and causation variables. Variables were entered as impacting the frontier component as well as the efficiency component of the stochastic curve because a priori both components could be impacted. A factor that has an impact on the cost frontier was the number of hours per day the milking facility is used. Using the milking facility for more hours per day decreased frontier costs; however, inefficiency increased with increased hours of milking facility use. Thus, farmers can decrease costs with increased utilization of the milking facility, but only if they are efficient in this strategy. Parlors compared with stanchions used for milking did not decrease frontier costs, but decreased costs because of increased efficiency, as did the use of a nutritionist. Use of rotational grazing decreased frontier costs but also increased inefficiency. Older farmers were less efficient.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Profitability of grazing versus mechanical forage harvesting on New York dairy farms.

The profitability of rotational grazing versus mechanical harvesting of forages was estimated using data from 237 nongrazing and 57 grazing farms participating in the New York farm business summary program in the year 2000. The objective was to perform an empirical comparison of the profitability of grazing versus mechanical forage harvesting systems. A regression analysis technique that controls for treatment selection bias is used to determine the impact of grazing on the rate of return on assets. This is accomplished by joint maximum likelihood estimation of a probit adoption function and a profit function. The results indicate that treatment selection does not have an important impact on the estimate of the profitability of grazing. There were wide ranges and overlap of profitability among herds using the two systems. However, other things equal, farmers utilizing grazing systems were at least if not more profitable than farmers not using grazing systems. After controlling for the factors influencing the decision to graze, we found that herd size, rate of milk production per cow, and prices received for milk have a strong positive impact on profitability. Farmers who perceive potential lifestyle benefits that might be obtained by implementing a grazing system likely do not have to pay an income penalty for adopting a grazing system.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Measuring the financial risks of New York dairy producers.

The financial risks of a group of New York dairy producers were measured from 1988 through 1997 and were decomposed by source of risk by two procedures. Decomposition of the variance suggested major contributors to variability in returns to New York dairy farms were variabilities in purchased feed quantities and milk production; milk price variability contributed substantially less. Similarly, decomposing the Gini measure of income dispersion indicated that milk revenues and purchased feed expenditures contributed most to farm return inequality over time. Controlling feed costs and maintaining high and stable milk production appear to be the principal approaches that dairy producers can use to control their financial risks.

Animal Feed↗

PubMed2001

Efficiency and competitiveness of the small New York dairy farm.

Many believe that small dairy farms cannot survive because costs of production per cwt of milk are thought to be higher than the cost of production per cwt of milk on larger farms. Raw summaries of dairy farm business records in New York are consistent in that smaller dairy farms do have higher average costs of production. However, 1999 data from a group of 314 New York dairy farms were used to model costs of production as frontier or best practice costs with a separate efficiency component accounting for use of projected best practices. That modeling procedure showed that most of the empirical high cost observed on many small dairy farms is due to inefficiency. Therefore, efficient small dairy farms can be competitive with larger dairy farms in New York in producing milk at comparable costs per unit. The frontier cost of production for a 50-cow farm was $13.61 per hundred pounds (45.5 kg) or $0.299 per kg, only slightly over 4% more than costs for a 500-cow farm ($13.03 per hundred pounds or $0.287 per kg). The implication is that the efficient small dairy farm can compete with the efficient large dairy farm.

Animal Husbandry↗

PubMed1997

The empirical impact of bovine somatotropin on New York dairy farms.

Data from 259 farms that participated in the Cornell University Dairy Farm Business Summary Project were used to measure the impact of bovine somatotropin (bST) on milk production and profitability per cow. Linear regression was used to estimate the response to bST when other variables were held constant. Bovine somatotropin was a dummy variable for bST use or nonuse in the equations. For farms that used bST on 25% or more of the cow days in 1994, milk production increased by 510 kg per cow. Returns above purchased feed costs increased $153 per cow for farms that used bST. Milk receipts over operating costs increased $120 per cow for farms that used bST. The use of bST was estimated to increase net farm income by $27 per cow, but this estimated coefficient was not statistically different from 0. Differences in costs for labor or veterinary services per cow were not significantly different between farms that used bST and farms that did not use bST.

Animal Husbandry↗