A survey of 874 dairy farms indicates challenges for Extension educators to address differentiated needs of dairy farmers. Confinement producers will focus on educational issues relating to larger farm and herd size, and higher milk production, to stay competitive. Intensive grazing producers, being somewhat younger, more highly educated, and having recently adopted new technology, are likely to innovate and incorporate formal planning processes to improve grazing performance. Farmers using traditional production techniques present a unique challenge because they are likely to shift toward specialized confinement of grazing systems to improve competitiveness. The low indebtedness of traditional producers is conducive to financing system change and innovation. Because all three groups anticipate increased use of computers, education and outreach activities focusing on planning and ration balancing may be useful.
Parsons et al. (Sat,) studied this question.