Ag Minute: North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge - Empowering Young Leaders in Dairy

Dairy in Illinois is a fairly small industry, but it plays a crucial role in supplying fresh milk and associated products across the state. Nationwide, dairies are located in pockets that generally have adequate water resources, close proximity to processing facilities, and relatively cheap land. While Central Illinois is limited in some of these areas, Tillamook County Creamery has reopened an Ice Cream plant in Decatur and Prairie Farms operates processing facilities across the state. Other important aspects of dairy production are adequate in Illinois, with vast amounts of land to spread manure on, relatively cheap and ample feedstuffs, and a central location to be able to ship milk towards larger population centers. Central Illinois does have some scattered dairies, but the majority of dairies in the state are located in Northern and Southern Illinois.

Dairy production is different in many ways from other agricultural production systems, and its unique characteristics make it an interesting segment of agriculture to study for businesspeople, professors, and students alike. Dairy production combines elements of crop production to produce the forages and grains needed to feed animals, livestock handling and feeding to grow heifers large enough to calve and begin producing milk, and true dairy practices to collect as much milk as possible from the cows without sacrificing lactation cycle or ability to calve in the future. The North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge (NAIDC) serves as an opportunity for undergraduate students across the U.S. and Canada to showcase their knowledge, skills, and experiences in the dairy industry through a competition.

There are three avenues through which students can participate, with the first being a regional competition generally held in the fall or winter, that is less competitive but serves as the basis of the national competition. The Northeast, South, Midwest, and Western regionals mix groups from different universities to create four person teams to encourage collaboration and the soft skills necessary to work well in the industry. Two dairy farms that are local to the location of the regional competition are selected on a voluntary basis to serve as the working business that students analyze over a two-day period. At the beginning of the competition, a couple of hours are allotted for newly acquainted team members to familiarize themselves with the farm’s past production and financial performance data. Participants then head to the farm itself. On the farm, students get to examine the facilities and animals and ask questions of owners and managers. The farms become living case studies for students of all backgrounds, many of whom either grew up or worked on farms, but some who have never been on a farm before. After being on the farm, students generally work late into the night combing through data sets, discussing, and evaluating changes that could be proposed. The case study culminates in presentations being prepared and presented to a panel of industry judges, who then follow up with questions and grade participating teams. The ultimate goal of each team is to benchmark the farm’s production and financial metrics against regional averages, identify areas of strength and opportunities for the business, and propose changes and the associated financial impact that come with them.

The format at the national competition is almost identical for the dairy challenge academy students, as it serves as a learning experience and many of their first times in a case study scenario. Primarily comprised of seniors, the national competition itself is many of their last case studies as college students and culminates with industry judges grading and ranking each team. While the regional challenge and national academy programs build teams made up of students from different schools, the national competition is made up of competing schools that are able to practice for months ahead of time. Each school is tasked with building a team of their four strongest case competitors, practicing, and competing in the same style as the regional competition. There becomes a sense of pride in representing your school for many students who do not compete in sports or other competitions at their respective college or university.

The benefits of NAIDC are numerous for students, case farms, researchers, and the industry as a whole. The four main benefits can be simplified into:

1. Providing valuable and real world insights with financial analysis to support them to working farms;

2. Giving students exposure to all aspects of dairy farming from analyzing feed rations, facility design, cropping programs, breeding protocols, milking procedures, and financing activities, to things as intimate as succession planning;

3. Connecting industry experts with the next generation of dairy leaders, while also connecting them amongst themselves; and

4. Gaining research exposure to real world problems and how dairy farmers are tackling them.

While the benefits for students working on a team are clear, the NAIDC has established itself well enough that the value it provides to numerous stakeholders is enough to garner support from across the industry year after year. The thought of opening up a farm, particularly a dairy, to outsiders whom owners have never met before may seem daunting to many. However, the role that this competition plays in developing young leaders in the industry, highlighting what research needs to be tackled by university professors, and producing actionable recommendations to working farms provides significant value to the participating farmers themselves. Opening up financials and discussions about succession planning is even more daunting, and rightfully so due to the sensitive and emotional nature of those items. A lot of work is performed year after year to show potential case farms the value that participation could have for them and in the industry, because they are the only way that this competition continues. A peek into the case competitions going on in the dairy industry could spark interest from grain, beef, pork, or poultry producers to build similar programs. There is a lot to gain for all parties involved in these competitions, which importantly provide the real world context for much of what ag colleges are teaching to students.

For more information on the NAIDC, follow the link below;

https://www.dairychallenge.org/