Guest Blog

I have nearly completed my work on the Pakhma Farm here in Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia.

I am on assignment in Russia for two weeks. I will write three articles about this assignment; this is the first one.

For this article, I am writing about the assignment itself … why I am here, what I hope to accomplish and some general comments about the area of interest.

When our fields are green, I enter them and search for myself. In 16 years of writing this column, I am often drawn to write about my field visits.

Yet another challenge to a common dairy practice recently crossed my desk. This time it is a proposal by the USDA under the Animal Welfare Act to regulate how newborn calves are treated from birth to about eight weeks old. Though only a proposed rule, it does suggest issuing a rule for limitations on the transporting, even the removal from the mother during some or all of that period. This would not be good for dairy farmers. It is not the first such challenge to dairy farming. It joins those that claim dairy farmers mistreat their cows, employ the wrong people, feed the wrong feed, give the wrong drugs, mishandle the waste, waste water and, to some, produce an unneeded product. More will come. How dairy farmers respond to those complaints will determine whether or not and the degree by which dairying survives in America.

I wrote of our Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) Course a few articles ago. The facilitated portion of the course is now done. In this article, I comment on the course and what we accomplished.

As I write this column, Memorial Day is two days away. We honor those countrymen and women serving around the world, including those wounded, injured and killed in action.