News

Missouri dairy study shows competitive advantages

A comprehensive look at Missouri’s dairy industry has been compiled and an economist says Missouri’s competitive advantages have changed over the years.

Joe Horner, with the University of Missouri Extension, tells Brownfield Ag News two of the biggest advantages now are access to water and the price of land, “The west is running out of water,” he says, “There’s a lot of dairymen in the western states that are looking at going further east. When they look east, or, when an existing dairy producer in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, looks to expand they’re looking at a lot of cases 5-to 10-thousand-dollar an acre land. Missouri has still has quite a bit of dairy- potential land quite a bit cheaper than that.”

What’s working against Missouri as a dairy state, Horner says, is the heat and humidity and increasing county-based health regulations. The “Missouri Diary Industry Revitalization Study” was funded by the Missouri Department of Agriculture.