A DATCP press release said 41% of farms responded to the survey. Highlights from this year’s survey include 83% of farmers responding that they believe their operation will still in be milking in five years. Just 75% of farmers responded in the same way in 2010, and Secretary-designee Randy Romanski said it’s clear that there is more optimism in the dairy producer community this year.

“These responses were being sent to us during the time of COVID-19 hitting the dairy industry … it was interesting that that number was as high as it was compared to 2010,” Romanski said. “That was a more optimistic view than it was 10 years ago.”

The survey also reflected a shrinking need for farm labor: 23% of respondents said they will need additional laborers on their farms in the next two years, with the majority of those being larger farms. The survey also showed that 84% of respondents would hire a military veteran, while 48% would hire a previously incarcerated individual.

On conservation practices, 59% percent of respondents said they use cover crops as a method of soil management, while 70% said they use grass waterways. Just 50% of producers said they participate in no-till agriculture. Fifteen percent said they compost as an alternative manure handling practice. Just 9% of farms said they identify as organic.

Respondents said the top five challenges to continuing milking were extreme weather conditions (46%), regulations (39%), managing day-to-day expenses (39%), aging facilities (38%) and managing long-term debt (25%). They also said that the top three disruptions to the dairy industry over the next five years will be balancing milk supply and demand (70%), regulations (51%) and trade policies (44%).

The DATCP dairy producer survey showed the diversity of conservation practices on dairy operations.

On mental health, 9% of respondents said they needed to access mental health services due to farming challenges – of those, 71% said they needed access for themselves and 36% said it was needed for a family member. However, just 6% of those respondents said they had received mental health services in the past year.

Forty-eight percent of respondents said the farm’s primary decision maker is between 50 and 64 years of age, 42% of which said they have identified a successor to take over the farm after retirement. Respondents overwhelmingly said they would pass the farm onto their children at 88%. When asked what would happen to the farm after succession, 41% said the farm would continue operating as normal, although 30% said they were unsure what would happen.

The survey was passed out around the time the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in mid-March, but Romanski said he doesn’t believe that had a significant impact on the response to the survey. He said the survey results are important to know because they help DATCP and other agencies respond to the needs of farmers.

“Since the last dairy producer survey was conducted ten years ago, Wisconsin’s dairy industry has changed,” said Krista Knigge, administrator of the Division of Agriculture Development. “Even during COVID-19, this is an opportunity to assess the state of the industry and current demographics, and learn more about how DATCP and other partners can serve as a resource to dairy producers.”