Credit: Virginia Ishler Screen captures of the DairyCents app
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. A free mobile app developed by Penn State researchers can help dairy farmers plow through financial planning by helping them track feed costs and income. The DairyCents app, currently available on the Apple iPhone, helps farmers estimate income over feed cost per cow, a number that tells farmers how much money is left over to pay other expenses minus the feed costs, according to Virginia Ishler, nutrient management specialist and dairy complex manager in animal science. Another function compares feed prices in several locations across the country. "Farmers are doers, they enjoy the physical work aspect of farming, but not always the financial side of the operations," said Ishler. "Hopefully, this app makes this part a little easier." To use the income-over-feed function, farmers need to enter only a few pieces of information to help estimate the income a cow can produce compared to the cost of the feed, according to Ishler. They can enter the date, their zip code and estimated level of milk production.
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