A Prospective Assessment of the Impacts of Bovine Somatotropin: A Case Study of Wisconsin

Abstract

Abstract The predicted effects of bST on aggregate supply, milk price, and farm structure is extremely sensitive to several key assumptions: the impact of bST on production per cow, cost of bST to farmers, returns required by farmers to adopt bST, price of milk when bST is introduced, speed and extent of adoption. A case study of Wisconsin dairy farms indicates that the overall economic impact of bST will be much less than most other studies have predicted. The projected effects, however, are similar to Cochrane's treadmill theory, albeit less severe than predicted by earlier estimates.