The Demand for Inputs and Technical Change in the U.S. Dairy Manufacturing Industry

The dairy industry is of much interest worldwide because it has been subject to heavy government intervention. Central to the analysis of any dairy policy is a quantitative empirical understanding of the economic relationships in the industry. This paper models and measures the input demand relationships—especially, derived demand for farm milk as a processing input—and the rate and biases of technical change in the U.S. dairy manufacturing industry. Our estimates indicate that the Marshallian own-price elasticity of demand for farm milk is between −0.43 and −1.20. Estimates also indicate that technical change has been capital using and labor saving.

What are the factors affecting the consumers’ milk choices?

There is an increasing interest in specialty milk products such as soymilk, cholesterol free/lactose free (CFLF) milk and organic milk. While the market shares of these milk types are still small, specialty milk consumption is one of the fastest growing consumer segments in the dairy industry. Therefore, it is of interest to producers, consumers as well as the policy-makers to identify the consumer profile of these products and to determine policies based on the consumer choices. In the article, there are utilised the actual consumer sales data to see whether the USDA’s dairy policy follows the consumers’ milk preferences. The results indicate that the household demographics significantly affect milk preferences. Race is by far the most striking factor in the consumers’ decision process. Minority households have a much higher probability of purchasing specialty milk types than the white households. They are also loyal customers of the specialty milk types and are less responsive to the changes in factors that affect their purchase decision. Based on these findings, there is recommend an alternative policy to the USDA’s one-size-fits-all type of dairy guidelines.

Creating Open Education Resources for Teaching and Community Development through Action Research: The Milk Production and Hygiene Module

One of the cornerstones of the AgShare program is the application of an information loop of action research in the training of graduate students to generate new and practical educational materials and interventions for creating OER modules for teaching at universities, and designing interventions and training programs for making improvements in the dairy value chain in Uganda. One major output of the action research project was the generation of data for use in partial fulfillment of a Master’s of Science and Master’s in Agribusiness and Management degrees by participating students. A Milk Production and Hygiene OER module was developed based on components in milk safety, dairy policy, contaminants in milk and dairy products, quality assurance, and dairy planning and management. The OER module was incorporated into an existing graduate level course at Makerere University. As the AgShare approach continuously updates educational materials through the information loop, this ensures that university training of students is applicable to the current needs of the dairy industry.