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Economics of Production

ORGANIC DAIRY

• Organic Dairy Enterprise Budgets
  Added December 3, 2010. Enterprise budgets can be used as an important decision tool for farm owners and managers. Dr Robert Tigner, Extension Educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, created a working spreadsheet for organic dairy producers and covers all its attributes in this article, which includes a link to the spreadsheet so that you can insert your own production numbers. MORE >
• Economics of Organic Dairy Transition
  Added December 3, 2010. Minnesota economists will study the economic costs associated with transitioning from traditional to organic farming through a new 4-year USDA grant. Learn more >
• Organic Dairy Study Results for the 2008 Production Year
  Added May, 2010. Over the past 5 years a joint project between NOFA and UVM Extension has examined the economics of organic dairy production in Vermont and Maine, with the study looking only at Vermont for the last 2 years.  What we have found is an agricultural sector that experienced a surge in profitability and prices in 2006 only to see those profits erode by 2009. 
  

• Counting the Costs that Count on Your Farm
  An article by keynote speaker James Landis. MORE >
  
  
• Preliminary Summary of 2007 Economic Results in Vermont, by Bob Parsons (November, 2008)
  
  
• A Comparative Analysis of Organic Dairy Farms in Maine and Vermont: Farm Financial Information from 2004 - 2006 by Timothy Dalton, Robert Parsons, Richard Kersbergen, Glenn Rogers, Dennis Kauppila, Lisa McCrory, Lisa A. Bragg, Quingbin Wang (July 2008)
  
  
• Economics of Organic Dairy Production in the Northeast, by Lisa McCrory, Bob Parsons and Richard Kersbergen, May 2007 NODPA News
  
  
• Summary of Economic Studies of Organic Dairy Farming in Wisconsin, New England, and Quebec By Tom Kriegl (March 20, 2006)
  
  
• Nat Bacon's Sample Transitioning Budget, 2004 (link is to a MS Excel file, xls)
  
  
• "An Economic Comparison of Organic and Conventional Dairy Production, and Estimations on the Cost of Transitioning to Organic Production" By Lisa McCrory, NOFA-VT, 2001

GRAZING

• Pastures of Plenty: Financial Performance of Wisconsin Grazing Dairy Farms, Feb. 05 (pdf)