Two Utah State University dairy experts are working to enrich knowledge in Azerbaijan, a struggling country with limited information about modern dairy practices. USU’s Kerry Rood and Allen Young made a summer trip to Azerbaijan, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan is 39 percent of the size of Utah, but has more than triple Utah’s population. Rood and Young traveled as part of a USDA Foreign Agricultural Service project aimed at helping the country upgrade its agricultural productivity and veterinary science program by bringing updated information to universities.

“Most of the faculty are in their 60s and were educated in the former Soviet Union,” said Young, a USU Extension dairy specialist.

“The key element really is a knowledge gap. Many of the professors are fine individuals, but their knowledge of dairy science has become outdated. That is improving with more access to the Internet and information that is out there. We were able to help them put those resources into their curricula so they can learn.”

Young said dairy farmers in Azerbaijan have low productivity, in part because of low-quality feed.

Cows graze on grass, which is plentiful in the spring, but less so the rest of the year. In the winter, cows feed on grass hay, but farmers harvest it too late, when much of the grass’s nutritional content has gone into seed production.

The next step will be getting farmers to change their ways.

“With the grass hay, they just don’t know they’re supposed to be cutting it at a younger age," Young said. "They do it the way their father did it and their grandfather did it, and everyone has done it for a hundred years.” PD

—From the Standard-Examiner (Click here to read the full article.)