Farm Profitability as a Driver of Spatial Spillovers: The Case of Somatic Cell Counts on Wisconsin Dairies

We hypothesize that spatial spillovers among neighboring farms are not only driven by spatial proximity, but also by farm profitability considerations. This hypothesis is tested by examining the role of spatial spillovers in shaping somatic cell counts (SCC) on Wisconsin dairy farms. Results show that neighborhood links defined both in terms of geographic proximity and farm profitability give rise to spatial spillovers that affect SCC. Significant differences in the estimated spatial spillovers are observed when defining the neighborhood space in terms of both farm profitability and geographic proximity as opposed to geographic proximity alone, with the data favoring the former specification.