Louis Lab receives USDA-AFRI award to support dairy farm resilience
By Jose Briceño, Communication Specialist | February 24, 2026
Louis Lab and research partners have been awarded $588,600 in USDA–AFRI funding for the project “Economic Decision-Making Tools for Small and Mid-Sized Dairy Farmers for Business Resilience.” The project is supported through AFRI Foundational and Applied Science within Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities (AERC), under Program Code A1601: Small and Medium-Sized Farms, which supports research and tools that strengthen the viability and competitiveness of small and medium-sized farm businesses.
Small and mid-sized dairy farms operate in an environment shaped by consolidation, labor constraints, and elevated exposure to price and cost volatility.
When producers consider major transitions (access different markets, or diversify revenue) or changes in structure (to address labor availability), those decisions often involve large, irreversible investments and complex trade-offs. This project will develop an open-access, web-based decision-support tool designed to help dairy producers evaluate (1) whether a transition is feasible given their farm’s operational and financial position and (2) which option best aligns with their goals and constraints under alternative market conditions.
The framework will compare four management strategies considered by dairy producers: automation through robotic milking systems, transition to organic production, raw milk marketing where legally permitted, and diversification into crossbreeding production. The tool will be grounded in real-world farm conditions in California, Texas, and Wisconsin, reflecting the different dairy systems across three major dairy states.
Rather than providing a single “best practice,” the project emphasizes structured, comparable evaluation across alternatives. It will combine farm business benchmarks with scenario-based analysis so users can examine how results change with key assumptions (e.g., prices, costs, and production outcomes) and with differences in farm objectives. The goal is to provide a practical resource that improves economic decision- making around high-stakes management practices, supporting more resilient farm businesses.
The project is led by Dr. Sushil Paudyal (Texas A&M University) and includes Dr. Luis Peña-Lévano (University of California, Davis), Dr. Karun Kaniyamattam (Texas A&M University), and Dr. Shaheer Burney (University of Wisconsin–River Falls), with collaborators Dr. Daniela Bruno (UC ANR) and Dr. Rubia Branco Lopes (UC ANR).