Enter Data

Step 1-Download the survey form. The PDF file can be opened and printed on any PC or Macintosh computer with Adobe Acrobat Reader installed. If you do not have Acrobat, it can be downloaded at no cost from Adobe's web site. The survey form contains instructions on how to complete the questions.

Step 2-Complete the survey form off-line. After downloading the survey form, you should exit the web page and carefully answer each question on the printed form. When this is done, return to the web page and proceed to step 3. The "Return" button below will return you the opening page of the Top Dairies web page.

Step 3-Enter the data from your completed form into the database. When you are ready to submit your data, click on the button below. You can save your data at intervals along the way. There are "Save" buttons at each of the major survey headings. Any data that you have entered can be edited immediately, or any time later, to correct mistakes. Your entries will be screened by the computer to see if gross mistakes have been made. You may also be prompted for possible oversights. As a final check, you will receive notification that your data has been approved by a faculty member at Cornell within a few days.

Step 4-Look at your farm summary. Your farm's data will be summarized into more meaningful information in a report. Descriptive statistics of your operation, a balance sheet, total receipts and expenses by category, per hundredweight and per cow receipts and expenses by category, return on assets, and a build-up of costs per hundredweight are included in the report.

Step 5-How does my operation compare? Finally, you will want benchmarks of performance to know how your operation compares with other producers. The database query lets you determine your benchmark(s). If your farm is about 500 cows, producing about 22,000 lbs of milk per cow in the Southwest--you can request farms with similar characteristics. If you are a smaller producer in the Northeast and would like to see what levels of performance larger farms in your region are achieving--you can request that information. If you would like to see what farm characteristics are consistent with a return on assets greater than 10%--you can do that!

The only requests that will not be honored are those which yield fewer than three farms in the database. You will get an error message that suggests that you "relax the constraints". This is a fancy way of saying that there are not enough farms to honor your request. If you have requested a benchmark of farms with more than 1000 cows but less than 1200 cows in the Southwest, you might try more than 1000 but less than 1500 cows, or make the region the West and not the more specific Southwest. You should also visit the site at a later date when more operations will have added their data.

You should take time to generate several benchmarks that may help you set reasonable goals for your operation. You can request that your farm be tested against the benchmark. If you select that option, the per hundredweight receipts and expenses on the benchmark will be shown with an asterisk (*) if your farm is statistically different from the selection. Comparing these flagged values to your own will show if your farm has done better or if there may be an area for improvement.