How do we, you know, build, uh, the dairy farms back? Because we've lost so many.

You know, I joined, uh, Hoard's Dairyman staff in 1995.

The one thing that we, uh, the industry, we're actually at a 34-year high in cows.

So while dairy farm numbers do, uh, go down, the number of dairy cows in this country continues to climb, partially because of this protein having a, beyond a moment here.

This is a structural shift.

And I think four things Encourage that to happen in the, uh, in consumer markets.

Number one, c- consumers coming out of, uh, the pandemic, looking at health, heal- as food as medicine, and so looking for cleaner ingredient labels.

Are you seeing that?

What was your inspiration to write it?

Yeah, I've written two books, On a Wisconsin Family Farm, and The Wisconsin Farm They Built.

So the first book, On a Wisconsin Family Farm, takes us to immigrant, uh, America.

My family is actually the characters in the book, but I use a process of creative nonfiction to bring the book to life, seeing what was happening in Wisconsin, the US, and the world that caused people to make those decisions at the time.

People who have read it, the best compliment I've received is, "It gets me and our family talking about the stories in our family." It, it sparks, uh, conversation.

And the, uh, inter- other interesting thing about our family is that the farm passed through the women of our family, so my great-grandmother was a landowner in 1906, before women could vote constitutionally in the United States.

Then my, went through my grandmother, and then my mom.

So interesting, and as mentioned, Cory was named World Dairy Expo Person of the Year, and he talked about that wonderful honor.

Today, he, he talks about one of the hotter issues the last few years for the industry, and that has been the growth in beef on dairy.

If you're in dairy, five years ago, cull cows and the calves they had were about 5% of revenue.

Now we have this, what I call 1961, 1951, and 1941 effect in the countryside.

1961, we have the lowest beef cow numbers in the country.

1951, the lowest livestock numbers, so that's beef and dairy combined.

And this year, we have the lowest calf crop since 1941.

What that tells me is for dairy farmers that are maybe have retired from dairy farming but have, wanna be in the business for a while in agriculture, the beef opportunity has some long-term legs here because even if we start retaining heifers, beef heifers, that, uh, inventory numbers aren't gonna climb for two to three years at a, at a minimum here.

Are you seeing that?

Where are dairy markets? Where is the dairy industry here in the country?

Well, taking it to 30,000 feet, there's a lot of good things going on.

Dairy demand is strong.

Um, cottage cheese, high-protein dairy shakes, and yogurt are nearly all growing double digits.

So our creamers are n- putting, are getting close to that.

Uh, near term, though, and the other thing is young people, young farmers can invest in their dairies with the certainty there'll be a home for their milk.

We have $14 billion of new dairy processing investment coming online through 2028, and quite a bit that's already come online.

How do we, you know, build, uh, the dairy farms back? Because we've lost so many.

in general.

I had the opportunity to speak at the 70th National 4-H Conference and I talked about 10 learning things, people that came in my life and that were servant leaders.

And one of them was my judging coach, Bill Borgwart.

And I grew up in Manitowoc County, Sunnyside Holsteins were a very well-known herd.

One of their top bulls in the 60s was Sunnyside Standout.

But Bill Borg was my judging coach.

And I was a late bloomer, didn't go out hardly as a junior.

So what is your vision for all of this?

Corey, do you see beef on dairy going away?

I do not.

When you look at it, five years ago, dairy farmers were making about 5% of their revenue from the beef category, the baby calves and the cull cows.

There's a Farm Credit East data set from 2025.

We're up to 20%.

Now that the listeners are out there, we had the numbers peaked at $2,000 per calf and have since fallen back to $1,200 to $1,300.

But we have to remember that's still a lot higher than $400 five years ago.

But are we reaching a balance yet where we aren't wading through too much supply?

And it's not so much fluid milk, is it?

Nope.

When I got to CoBank, there were two things I wanted to accomplish immediately.

Put a value on what genetics meant to the dairy farmer.

If I come to a bank and I can't do that in dollars and cents, then that's mission number one.

Mission number two, in the fall of 2023, our industry was still talking milk production, milk production, milk production.

And I was like, so what? The driver of this industry is milk components, butter, fat, and protein.

And then we've been chasing the consumer wants with genetics, right?

How does this not become a fad that then the industry has to endure? Sure.

I speak around the country, and that is a very, very good question, Paul, and one that I get asked from time to time.

Is it a fad or is it a trend? Actually, I'm a board advisor for Dairy Management, Inc., the National Dairy Checkoff, and we're going to be meeting at the Mayo Clinic here in late September.

And part of that is food is medicine.

We're coming back to this coming out of the pandemic, People are a lot more conscious about what they're eating, what it does for their body.

And some of the research that's coming out of there, and there's already five years of research, and Dairy Management, Inc. is renewing the agreement with the Mayo Clinic for five more years of research.

But we're finding that saturated fats are actually good for you, especially when it comes to cognitive ability and brain health.

So why need more animals if we're better with the ones we have?

Talk about, give us a thousand foot view of where you see things right now in the dairy industry, Corey.

Well, we're seeing a historic now $14 billion of new processing assets that are going to be coming online through 2028.

It's this generational growth driven by consumer demand for protein.

The United States economy is 70% of it comes from consumers, and protein is bounding higher.

When it comes specifically to dairy, dairy's protein profile, the amino acids in dairy are the most complete known to humanity.

So cottage cheese is growing double digits for three years now.

The yogurt category largely is growing double digits, powered by Greek yogurt, which is three times the protein of traditional yogurts.

I mean, put this in perspective for that dairy producer and what all of this excitement means for them.

The kid in the middle of the show ring from Manitowoc County who had hardly left the state to now the world traveling dairy economist who as to date this year has spoken at 25 different meetings and engagements and traveled to I don't know how many countries.

Well, I've been four continents and quite a few countries on those continents.

I go back.

I remember it was vividly to this day.

How does a person with a dairy science Egon major land up with a career he had? But in the summer of 1986, my dad took me to the local bank.

and opened up a checking account.

I was going to be an eighth grader that year.

How did you ever get involved in becoming not just an editor at that time, but a book author?

Now, Corey, what are you keeping an eye on?

Doubling down on the value of our neighbors.

When it comes to some of our major food products and what we grow on our farm, Mexico is our biggest customer for corn.

They're not quite as big in the scale for soybeans, but they're our biggest customer for pork.

They're our biggest customer for poultry.

When I talk to dairy circles, one quarter of exports in dairy go to our friends south of the border.

Wheat is also, Mexico is a big partner of ours.

Now, Corey, from your economist perspective, what are your thoughts on this topic?

Building on what Rob said here, I've had a number of national media outlets reach out and say, ice cream is inflating, the price is inflating so much.

What's causing that? And it's not the ingredients.

It's labor costs.

It's the cost to scoop ice cream and serve it in the metropolitan areas.

Taking that to a 30,000-foot view, Gallup does a poll each year and asks, what's the most important financial problem facing your family? In 2024, that open-ended question peaked at 41%, inflation being the answer.

It dropped some in 2025, but now it's back up to 31%.

Now, Corey, from your perspective, what are some of the things you're seeing in the AI space?

Um, so, uh, i- if you will, kinda give us an idea of kinda what the, was the genesis of this idea and some of the key things that you wanted to pull out of this conversation.

Well, Scott, I, I think the big picture here, and these dairy producers that are with us, and, uh, nutritionists, is milk components are really driving the equation, not only on a dairy farm, but in milk processing.

Um, you know, 90% of dairy farmers are paid on milk component, multiple component pricing.

Top two components are butterfat and protein.

And, you know, when it comes to cheese, 49%, almost 50% of, uh, all milk components go into cheese production.

But we have a host of wonderful dairy products.

The cottage cheese are growing double digits.

Any other key learnings, Cory, uh, w- w- as you went through the, the panel discussions earlier today?