Margin over feed is the dairy’s real revenue line — and the study’s job is to underwrite a commodity spread with living inventory.
Dairy underwriting is spread analysis: milk price minus feed cost, per hundredweight, times production — with both legs of the spread set by commodity markets the operator does not control. A credible study models margin-over-feed across the historical range rather than at the current price, tests coverage at the spread’s lean years, and treats the operation’s risk-management practice — forward contracting, margin-protection programs — as management-dimension evidence with direct coverage consequences.
Expansion credits add throughput logic: parlor capacity, herd growth schedules, and the biology of the ramp — springing heifers arrive on gestation timelines, not draw schedules. Facility design (freestall capacity, manure handling, feed storage) is technical-dimension content with regulatory edges, and the manure system increasingly doubles as a revenue question where digester economics reach the farm.
The firm’s dairy work spans production agriculture and the processing step above it — where USDA value-added programs reward the move from hundredweight to branded product — with herd-level production benchmarked against DHIA-type records and the milk-check’s component pricing modeled as the revenue architecture it actually is.
Engagements are typically initiated by the borrower, with lender or CDC confirmation obtained before work begins — institutions apply differing rules, so sponsors should confirm the required path with their lending contact — and are delivered in 10 to 15 business days from complete project data, and built to the program framework that governs the credit — SBA SOP 50 10 8 coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global, the 37-factor structure of USDA 7 CFR Part 5001, or the 1.20x convention of conventional credit policy — with a ten-year pro forma, sensitivity at ±5/10/15 percent, rate stress to +3.0 percent, and Monte Carlo analysis as standard equipment.
President, Wert-Berater, Inc. — independent feasibility study consultants since 1998. 4,000+ engagements completed across all 50 states and internationally, evaluating $41.2 billion in project value for SBA, USDA, EB-5, conventional, and institutional financing decisions. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and agency in every engagement.
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Schedule a ConversationIndependent feasibility studies since 1998 — 4,000+ engagements, $41.2 billion in evaluated project value. Standard delivery in 10 to 15 business days. Fiduciary duty to the lender and agency.
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Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent provider of feasibility studies and other related services. The firm does not provide financing or equity investment advice, and does not arrange, broker, or place debt or equity capital of any kind.
All appraisal assignments are performed by Bruce E. Jones, MAI, ASA-GC, BCA, CMEA, a member of the Appraisal Institute since 2006, a staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc. and owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.