Farm structural change of a differentkind: Alternative dairy farms inWisconsin—graziers, organic and Amish

Although the emergence of large confinement operations out of a system previously dominated by mid-sized confinementhas been one major structural trend in Wisconsin dairy farming since the 1990s, a second structural trend has been thesignificant emergence of moderate-sized dairy farms using alternative management strategies: management-intensiverotational grazing (MIRG) (25% of Wisconsin’s dairy farms), organic production (3%) and Amish farm production practices(5–7%). This paper presents the first systematic and representative comparative study on the structure, behavior andperformance of multiple pasture-based dairy farm strategies. Wisconsin is an ideal site for this study given the prevalence ofpasture-based farms, yet many of the findings here should be relevant for other traditional dairy states where similar types ofalternative farm management systems are also emerging. Divergence with respect to farm strategy has implications forstructure, technology and management adoption patterns as well as farmer satisfaction levels. Our findings suggest thatalternative dairy farming systems are likely to become more prevalent on the agricultural landscape of Wisconsin