Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Wisconsin Farmers Feed Theircows: Results Of The 1999 Wisconsin Dairy Herd Feeding Study, Douglas B. Jackson-Smith, J. M. Powell

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Wisconsin dairy industry has seen dramatic changes over the last 20 years (Jackson- Smith and Barham, 2000). Overall, dairy farm numbers have been cut in half since the early 1980s, and the average size of remaining herds has increased by more than 60 percent (from roughly 40 cows to over 65 cows per herd). Despite these changes, most dairies are still single-family businesses, relying on household members for virtually all their farm labor requirements (Buttel et al., 2000). In 1998, state statistics suggested that over 70 percent of Wisconsin dairy operations were milking between 30 and 99 cows, and …