Uplevel Dairy Podcast

In this episode of the High-Performance Mindset Series powered by Nedap, Peggy Coffeen interviews Rodney Elliot, an Irish-born dairy farmer who, alongside his wife Dorothy and family, has spent 20 years building Drumgoon Dairy in South Dakota into a multi-site operation and helping launch the 5,000-cow County Line Dairy partnership, where a 100-stall rotary milks 100 cows about every eight minutes. Elliot explains how scaling became more manageable through specialized roles, simplified protocols, and shared systems across sites, including centralized data access via DairyComp and activity monitoring through Alta CowWatch powered by Nedap.

Rodney details a high-performance reproduction program with one dedicated technician per farm, minimal hormonal intervention, and targets like 32–34% pregnancy rate, plus strategic heifer pipelines through Kansas Dairy Development. Elliot discusses labor challenges, using technology and sort gates to reduce pen walking, the importance of partners and buy-sell agreements, difficult build decisions like walking away from a biodigester plan, and focusing leadership energy on controllables such as repro, cow comfort, feed quality, and people.
This episode is part of the High-Performance Mindset Series powered by Nedap. Nedap is future-proofing dairy farming with smart technologies in activity monitoring, cow locating, milk metering, sort gates, and AI-powered camera systems. Nedap is improving life on the farm by putting the right cow in the right place at the right time, every time.

00:00 From Ireland to South Dakota
01:55 Meet Rodney Elliott
05:31 Scaling with Partners
07:37 Inside County Line
12:24 Building for Scale
14:04 Profitable Cow Goals
18:19 Defining Great Repro
20:35 Collars and CowWatch
22:07 One Tech Accountability
26:29 Morning Briefings
29:26 Labor and Monitoring
31:34 Trusting Simple Systems
32:37 Why Nedap
36:11 Collar Data Continuity
37:04 Trusting Tech and IT
38:49 Future Risks and Labor
48:41 Legacy and Transition
52:11 Building and Partnerships
53:25 Tough Calls Keep Simple
01:00:05 Advice and Wrap Up

Live from World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, Peggy Coffeen interviews House Agriculture Committee Chair Congressman G.T. Thompson ahead of his roundtable with the American Dairy Coalition. Thompson, a central Pennsylvania dairy farm native, highlights dairy priorities he has championed, including ongoing efforts to restore whole milk options in schools and updates included in “Farm Bill 1.0” signed July 4, 2025, such as modernizing Dairy Margin Coverage from 5 to 6 million pounds and offering a 25% multi-year sign-up discount, along with provisions affecting make allowances and milk marketing orders.
The conversation centers on workforce needs and Thompson’s bipartisan Securing Agricultural Workforce Act, which would make year-round dairy eligible for the H-2A program by replacing “seasonal” with “temporary” (under 350 days). He urges listeners to contact Congress and the White House to pass SAWA now.
Stay tuned for more exclusive conversations captured from World Dairy Expo coming out soon!

01:08 GT Thompson's Ag Roots
02:14 Whole Milk Push
03:18 Farm Bill Wins
05:52 Workforce Focus
06:35 SAWA Explained
08:32 Why Visas Matter
10:52 Call to Action
13:35 Wrap Up Thanks

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen is onsite with Josh Webb, at multi-generational Heglar Creek Dairy near Declo, Idaho, a fifth-generation family operation that relocated from Utah in the mid-1970s and has since grown and diversified. Webb describes the family’s structured pathway into the business, requiring education, outside work, interviews, and defined roles, as well as a clear exit strategy including retirement expectations.
He explains how the operation expanded into multiple enterprises, and how two nearby dairies differ in breeds and milking systems, including a 2018 Jersey robot barn with 18 Lely units. Webb discusses being early adopters of technology, adopting Milc group's cloud-based OneFeed and OneAnimal for real-time accuracy and integration, prioritizing “first who, then what” in hiring, using EOS-style meetings, and partnering with Danone, including transitioning to non-GMO feed and related regenerative changes. The episode emphasizes legacy as building people and work ethic so the next generation can keep evolving.
This episode is brought to you by Milc Group.
Milc Group is a dairy software company that brings real-time, actionable data to dairy farms across the world. They are dedicated to revolutionizing the dairy industry with their user-friendly cloud-based software. ONE™ by Milc Group is our all-in-one app that brings together all the important aspects of your dairy together in one place. With products such as feed and animal management software, people training, dairy facility monitoring, and scale management, Milc Group is committed to providing producers with tools they need to succeed.
02:33 Five Generations To Idaho
04:52 Earning Your Way Back
10:01 Diversifying Beyond Dairy
11:40 Rules For Entry And Exit
13:38 Two Dairies Two Systems
16:40 Why Build A Robot Barn
22:51 First Who Then What
25:02 Recruiting And Retaining Talent
26:56 Meetings Support And Tech Tools
29:57 Tech That Empowers Teams
30:59 OneFeed Simple Accuracy
34:56 Defining Dairy Success
36:14 Future Manager Skills
38:14 Partnering With Danone
42:13 Legacy Beyond The Farm
51:20 Work Ethic Sweat Pledge

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy interviews longtime dairy industry leader Peter Coyne about the relationships that shaped his life and his responsibility to “pay it back to the next in line.” Coyne describes his path from growing up in western New York around Holsteins and influential cow people, to working with Pinehurst, attending UW–River Falls, managing and expanding dairy herds, enduring a difficult partnership exit, gaining key leadership experience at John Dee Farm, and later joining VitaPlus, where he contributes cow and people management skills.

Ahead of World Dairy Expo, he shares his family’s involvement and his 41 years coaching dairy judging, emphasizing connection, culture, perseverance, learning through mistakes, and helping young people believe in themselves, often through simple acts like remembering names, giving time, and encouragement to keep moving.

This Episode is brought to you by Adisseo
This episode is sponsored by Uplevel Dairy Podcast Founding Partner Adisseo, a global leader in nutritional solutions and premier provider of rumen-protected methionine for dairy producers who want to optimize milk production, capture more value from components, and maintain the health of their high-performing herds. Learn more at https://www.adisseo.com/en/

07:20 From New York to Dairy Career
13:21 Hard Lessons and Big Leaps
16:06 Joining VitaPlus
19:40 Culture and Perseverance
25:44 Risk Taking Mindset
31:13 Giving Back Through Coaching
39:00 What Makes a Great Coach
47:55 Showing Cows Builds Grit
49:51 Learning Beside Great People
51:07 Mistakes Create Experience
54:54 Coach Versus Mentor
56:32 Mentoring Across Generations
01:01:05 Life Advice for Students
01:10:48 Parting Words and Payback
01:15:25 Expo Stories and Wins

Today, on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen talks with Duane Banderob and Jim Matthews about Ever.Ag separating into two standalone organizations.  EA Risk, formerly Ever.Ag Risk Management, is now an independent company focused solely on managing commodity markets across the agricultural supply chain. They share that it’s the same people, producer relationships, and farmer-first focus that the market has come to know over the past two decades. They explain that services remain unchanged, including protecting revenue and input risk through livestock and crop insurance, futures and options, energy and feed procurement strategies, advisory/consulting, and market publications, supported by their proprietary Vault platform and EA Risk Insights research.
The team sees the split as a chance to sharpen focus, improve technology and customer experience, and evolve offerings as dairy operations face increasing complexity, including beef-on-dairy exposure, digesters, new financing realities, and higher capital costs, while maintaining on-farm relationship standards and continuity for clients.
EA Risk, formerly Ever.Ag Risk Management, partners with dairy producers to build customized risk management plans that help protect margins in any market environment. With dedicated advisors, industry-leading technology, and proven tools like Dairy Revenue Protection, we help farms reduce uncertainty and secure long‑term financial strength. Learn more at https://ea-risk.carrd.co/.
00:00 Dairy Risk Shifts
02:02 Ever.Ag Shift Explained
03:47 Services That Stay
07:33 What Changes Next
09:19 Vault Platform Insights
10:10 Industry Risks Ahead
13:06 Core Philosophy: Relationships
16:09 Legacy Of Dairy Markets
18:24 Buggy Lesson
22:04 One Year Outlook
28:07 World Dairy Expo Plans