As dairy producers, you don’t need reminders of how tough the industry is these days. Just 12 months ago, you were enjoying healthy prices more reflective of the demanding lifestyle of the dairy business. What we all need to focus on during this current down cycle is paying attention to every detail. For All West, that means things like switching some company fleet trucks to more fuel-efficient, smaller vehicles and transitioning our field-to-office sales transactions to a streamlined online process. It means examining our daily work processes to see where we can become more efficient because those littlest of details can add up to significant savings!
The same goes for you! In this issue, you’ll meet a few All West member/owners who are seeing tremendous success by paying attention to details in their own operations. In our neck of the woods in California’s Central Valley, Alvin Groppetti increased his return on investment at his dairy by working with All West’s Kevin Lincomfelt to analyze reproductive data. Small tweaks here and there have paid off big time, not only in herd profitability, but tremendous reproductive health and success! Farther north from the Turlock office, Scott Ruby capitalized on an outstanding classification run by focusing on great genetics and correct matings, and he shares some personal insights into what bulls are working well at their Scio, Oregon, farm. Also in Oregon, Pete Mahaffy decided organic dairying was the profitable choice for him, along with breeding for A2A2 genetics.
At Select Sires, you’ll see the results of paying attention to every detail in our various sire lineups, as we can proudly offer the industry’s leading battery of GTPI leaders, fertility experts, genomic young sire power and cow family strength. Two members of the sire procurement team share their latest thoughts in this edition, of what’s going on in the industry and what you might expect next week! We appreciate them taking time to talk about bulls and industry issues alike, and give us their take on how we can better position ourselves as a successful cooperative.
All in all, we are challenged every day to examine the details of how we do business, much the way you are. As a member/owner, member/directed cooperative, we are fortunate to have an extremely intelligent, dynamic board that is paying attention to the details so that your cooperative remains successful and profitable. As you are probably aware, this is our 75th year in business, and we continue to celebrate all of our successes online each month at www.allwestselectsires.com. Check it out sometime if you haven’t had a chance yet. The foundation of our past has been a good one because they, too, paid attention to every detail.
As we all power through this current cycle of milk pricing, the lessons we learn and apply now will ultimately make for a brighter and stronger future. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
Bill Genasci
Director of California Operations
Turlock, CA
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