Siouxland Dairy Lenders Seminar Focus OnDairy Enterprise Issues

Agricultural lenders in the six Northwest Iowa counties serve over 100 dairymen, representing production from over 57,000 cows. Add to that Siouxland producers in the surrounding states and the numbers double. A review of programing for dairy lenders in Siouxland found that little programing had been directed to dairy lenders specifically in recent years. With the stresses of low milk prices, variable feed prices and high land prices, lenders were often using dated budgets and formulas to evaluate profitability of dairy enterprises. A Dairy Lenders Seminar for the Siouxland area was developed based on the Tri- State Lenders Conference (IA, IL, WI) as a template, conducted and evaluated in November 2017. 41 lenders came from four states, representing 14 lending institutions plus four other industries. From those that returned program evaluations their attendance translated to 65 dairies, 69,725 milking cows and 97,400 acres producing feed for those cows. Overall, 88 percent of respondents were mostly, or completely satisfied with the activity and 100 percent would recommend the activity to others. In addition, 65 percent anticipated benefiting economically as a direct result of what they learned from this Extension activity. When asked about the presenters, 100 percent were mostly or completely satisfied with their knowledge and responses to questions. Over 73 percent of the lenders indicated that one or more of their clients planned on expanding their herds; Fourteen percent predicted at least one of their clients would exit the industry; and 17 percent believed that one or more of their clients would add robotic milkers to their operations. We evaluated increase in the level of understanding and found that the highest change was in the understanding comparing profitability of conventional, organic and grazing dairies at 88 percent. Next, was dairy component markets and how it affects farm-gate prices plus the information on analyzing enterprises for profitability, both at 55 percent. Finally, plans to adopt a practice or technology as the result of a program is the truest measure of success for Extension programs, with 100 percent of respondents indicating the commodity market updates would be most likely. Overall, this initial Siouxland Dairy lenders Seminar was highly successful and will be held annually in the future.