3 Best Business Decisions for Palla Dairies in the Past 10 Years and What Growth, Scaling, and Diversification Look Like on the Farm

Long before New Mexico ever made it on the map as a top 10 dairy state, one family packed their bags like pioneers and headed East—from California to Clovis. Eric Palla was just a small boy at the time, as his father Wayne staked out a dairy and a dream that today includes 11,000 cows across three facilities, with two located in New Mexico and one in west Texas. In addition to the dairy, the family also farms 15,000 acres and operates a 1,300-head cow-calf herd.

What were the 3 best business decisions for Palla Dairies in the past 10 years? Peggy Coffeen sits down with Eric Palla today to find out on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast. Peggy talks about growth, scaling, and diversification with Eric Palla, including core business philosophies and high-impact actions, like:

• Consolidating operations for efficiency
• Hiring an operations manager
• Raising their own replacements on-site, combined with using genomic selection to drive their beef-on-dairy breeding strategy

If you listened to Ep. 134 with New Mexico dairyman Eric Palla, you got a glimpse inside the strategies and decisions that have guided growth, expansion, and diversification of Palla Dairies, from consolidating facilities to hiring a key manager, to raising all of their own replacements, combined with genomic testing to optimize their beef x dairy strategy.

Eric returns in this episode and we get a glimpse of how this forward-thinking dairyman and businessman views the future of his dairies and the industry, and what he is doing to level up his own leadership. At the end of this episode you can hear from Nick Randle, U.S. senior marketing lead for dairy productivity and milk quality with Zoetis, to talk about how today’s dairy producers are putting genomic testing innovations to work as a means of raising healthy, productive dairy cows that will help them thrive in today’s ever-changing dairy climate, and achieve dairy goals well into the future.

Episode 134 Links
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Watch this episode on the Uplevel Dairy YouTube channel.

Episode 135 Links
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Watch this episode on the Uplevel Dairy YouTube channel.