Event Coverage

More than 600 members from across the U.S., as well as some guests from Canada and Mexico, attended the National Holstein Convention’s 124th annual meeting recently in Sacramento, California. During the two-day business meeting, members discussed relevant topics including genomics and milk pricing.

Wearing her sparkling tiara and white sash over a red T-shirt, Minnesota’s Princess Kay of the Milky Way Kristy Mussman passed out dairy products from behind a table in the dairy aisle of a local grocery store.

A rotating milking parlor, weeping-wall manure-settlement basin, cross-ventilated dairy barns that work like huge swamp coolers – all were features at a Southwest Dairy Day held May 8 near Dublin.

On April 16-17, around 20 dairy producers from southern Wisconsin and Illinois visited five dairies to see new Lely robotic milking units in action. The tour, sponsored by Argall Dairy Systems of Belleville, Wisconsin, and Lely, stopped at dairies that had installed from one to four robots since September of 2008.

The Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin’s (PDPW) Annual Business Conference, March 17-18, in Madison, Wisconsin, fulfilled its theme by “Adding Passion, Multiplying Profits.”

More than 1,100 producers gathered from across the U.S. for the two-day event. Together they faced their challenges head-on, discussed solutions and walked away with a proactive approach to the future.

Producers who made the trip to the bi-annual Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada, last month had two things on their minds – depressed milk prices and how long they would last. More than 25 presenters addressed visitors during the three-day conference, and in one way or another, each spoke to producers’ economic concerns during presentations or after while fielding their questions.