What’s At Stake for the Dairy Workforce? (Copy)
Scaling a dairy operation can bring new opportunities, but it also creates a different set of challenges. More cows mean more people, more data, more decisions, and more systems that have to work together.
For Rodney Elliott, who has spent the past 20 years building dairy operations in the United States after starting his career in Ireland, growth has meant learning how to manage complexity without making the business unnecessarily complicated.
Today, Rodney's family operation, Drumgoon Dairy, has grown to nearly 6,000 cows, while his partnership at County Line Dairy in South Dakota includes a 5,000-cow facility. Along the way, he has learned lessons about reproduction, technology, people, partnerships, and leadership that apply to dairies of all sizes.
The biggest lesson may be this: as a dairy gets bigger, the systems have to get simpler.
Scaling Requires a Different Approach to Management
Rodney's original dream as a young dairy farmer in Ireland was to milk 100 cows. When he came to the United States, that vision grew to 1,400 cows at Drumgoon Dairy. Eventually, the operation expanded incrementally as milk demand created new opportunities.
That gradual growth taught Rodney something important about managing scale. When a dairy becomes large enough, specialization can actually make the business easier to manage. Instead of one person trying to understand every part of the operation, specialized people can take ownership of specific areas while sharing information across the business.
County Line Dairy gave Rodney an opportunity to apply those lessons from the beginning. Rather than building a new dairy around everything the family had learned individually, the operation was designed around systems, protocols, technology, and clearly defined responsibilities.
Bigger Operations Need Simpler Systems
One of Rodney's clearest management principles is that larger dairies need simpler systems.
At County Line, protocols create consistency. Employees know what is expected, managers can monitor results, and decisions are less dependent on individual opinions or preferences.
That becomes particularly important as the number of cows increases. A system that relies on one person's memory or judgment for every decision becomes difficult to maintain at scale.
Rodney has learned to focus on the systems that consistently produce the outcomes the operation needs. Reproduction is one example. Rather than having multiple people responsible for breeding cows with different approaches, the operation has narrowed the responsibility and created clear expectations around the work.
The goal isn't to remove judgment. It's to create enough structure that good judgment can be applied where it matters most.
Reproduction Is a Foundation for Growth
Reproduction has remained one of the most important measures across Rodney's operations.
For a large dairy, reproductive performance affects much more than the number of cows that become pregnant. It influences herd turnover, replacement availability, expansion plans, labor efficiency, and ultimately the economics of the operation.
When Rodney decided to build County Line, the team changed its breeding strategy at Drumgoon well in advance, creating an additional 100 to 120 heifers per month so replacements would be available when the new dairy needed them.
That planning became even more important when replacement prices increased significantly during construction.
Instead of relying entirely on the market, the operation had already created a pipeline of animals that could help fill the new facility. It was an example of planning around what the business could control rather than simply reacting to changing conditions.
Technology Works Best When People Trust It
Technology has played a major role in Rodney's approach to managing large herds.
Activity monitoring, rumination data, sort gates, parlor technology, cloud-based systems, and AI tools provide information that would be difficult for people to collect manually across thousands of cows.
But Rodney doesn't see technology as a replacement for people.
Instead, technology helps direct people's attention.
On a 1,000-foot barn, asking employees to walk the entire facility multiple times a day simply to identify which cows need attention isn't an efficient use of labor. Technology can narrow the focus by identifying cows whose activity, rumination, milk production, or other indicators suggest something has changed.
That allows people to spend more time acting on information rather than searching for it.
The technology doesn't replace the cow person's eye. It gives that person a better place to start.
Workforce Challenges Are Changing How Dairies Operate
Labor availability is one of the biggest challenges Rodney sees for the future of dairy.
Finding people is difficult, but finding people with the experience and skill to work with cows can be even harder. As experienced employees age out of the workforce, dairy producers have to find ways to help fewer people manage more cows without sacrificing animal care.
Technology is one part of that solution.
Instead of asking employees to physically monitor every cow, the operation can use data and monitoring systems to bring attention to the cows that need it. That makes it possible for skilled employees to manage larger groups while still maintaining a level of oversight.
It also changes what Rodney expects from his people. Employees need to understand the systems, follow protocols, communicate with the management team, and trust the information they are receiving.
That combination of technology and human judgment is becoming increasingly important as dairies scale.
Growth Requires Trusting Good People
Perhaps one of the biggest leadership changes that comes with growth is learning when not to make the decision yourself.
Rodney described how, earlier in his career, he would sometimes second-guess decisions made by his employees. As the operation grew, he realized that the people working with those cows every day often had a much more complete picture than he did.
That required trust.
It also required systems that made accountability possible.
When expectations are clear and results are measured, managers can give people responsibility without completely giving up oversight. The owner doesn't have to personally make every decision to know whether the system is working.
Rodney's experience building County Line also gave his team at Drumgoon more responsibility. Being away from the home dairy for a year allowed other members of the team to step into larger roles—and the operation had one of its best financial years during that period.
Sometimes scaling a business means discovering that the business can function better when you stop being involved in everything.
Focus on What You Can Control
Dairy producers operate in an environment filled with uncertainty. Milk prices change. Weather changes. Input costs change. Markets change.
Rodney's approach is to spend less energy worrying about what can't be controlled and more energy improving the things that can.
That includes reproduction, cow comfort, forage quality, feeding, people, and systems.
It's a simple concept, but it becomes increasingly important as an operation grows. The larger the business becomes, the easier it is to get distracted by factors outside of its control.
The more useful question is: What can we do better today?
For Rodney, the answer often comes back to the fundamentals. Get cows pregnant. Make good feed. Take care of the animals. Hire good people. Build systems that work. Measure the results.
The Right Partnerships Matter at Scale
Growth also requires a broader network of strategic partners.
Rodney describes banks, accountants, breeding companies, milk buyers, custom harvesters, manure contractors, consultants, and other service providers as stakeholders in the business.
The goal isn't simply to find someone who can perform a task. It's to build long-term relationships with people who understand the operation and can consistently help execute the parts of the business that they are better equipped to handle.
That philosophy extends to business partnerships as well. Rodney and his partner at County Line spent significant time developing their relationship and putting a buy-sell agreement in place before the partnership was fully underway.
For a large capital-intensive dairy, having clarity around how a partnership works—and how it can end—is part of building a sustainable business.
Growth Should Create Choices, Not Just More Cows
Rodney's original dream may have started with 100 cows, but his vision today is less about a specific number and more about creating choices for the future.
Strong reproduction creates the ability to expand. Technology creates the ability to monitor larger groups of cows. Good people create the ability for owners to step back. Land creates generational wealth. Strong partnerships create opportunities that might not exist alone.
That's a different way of thinking about growth.
The goal isn't simply to become bigger. It's to build an operation with enough systems, people, and flexibility that the business can respond when opportunities arise.
Building a Dairy That Can Outlast One Person
After 20 years in the United States, Rodney is also thinking about what comes next.
His family is beginning to work through the transition to the next generation, and he recognizes that the dairy doesn't necessarily have to be his children's or grandchildren's dream.
What he hopes to leave them is choice.
That may mean continuing in dairy. It may mean using the land to build generational wealth. It may mean pursuing something completely different.
For Rodney, the legacy isn't simply the number of cows milked or the size of the operation. It's creating something that gives the next generation options.
And perhaps that's the bigger lesson in scaling a dairy. Growth isn't just about adding more cows or building bigger facilities. It's about building the people, systems, relationships, and financial foundation that give the business more choices for whatever comes next.
Sometimes upleveling your dairy isn't about doing more.
It's about getting really clear on what matters, building systems around it, and trusting good people to carry it forward.
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