This paper suggests the value of a system-specific outreach education program for dairy producers that will both enhance economic survival and ability to adjust to technological change. These findings are based on a 1997 survey of Pennsylvania dairy farmers employing confinement, traditional, and intensive grazing management systems. The first two systems are becoming highly specialized in terms of management processes.
Intensive grazing requires frequent cattle rotation among a series of paddocks.
Traditional dairy systems benefit from a diverse mix of extensive pasturing and in-barn feeding, but frequently forego benefits of production specialization. In order to more clearly understand their needs, a stratified random sample of Pennsylvania dairy farmers served as the basis for this 1997 study. Questions were asked concerning farm production practices, level of satisfaction, and farm and farmer demographical characteristics. Stratification was based on the type of production system. The key variable differentiating dairy systems was the grazing intensity on the farm.