Dream of a high-performance sports car and a Corvette or Camaro may come to mind. In many ways, dairy cows are high-performance machines too. However, some dairy producers may still treat their top-performing “cowmaros” like their old, trusty farm trucks, which may not allow the cows to reach their full genetic potential. Just like a sports car, cows require maintenance and upkeep. By treating your cows like top performers instead of old farm trucks, you can increase cow productivity and maximize profitability.

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Earlier this fall, Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC), in collaboration with Lactanet and provincial partners, formally launched the new Canadian Dairy Hub website, now available online.

“As dairy producers, we need to make bringing people to the farm part of our job,” says Kevin MacLean, owner of Ripplebrook Farms. For MacLean, building consumer relationships isn’t just about an occasional conversation with consumers, it’s a conscious effort to connect them with the source of their food.

For those of us born during the last millennium, we will remember how wonderful it was when the concept of total mixed ration (TMR) was introduced. Mixers with capabilities of taking all the ingredients and creating one feed. But we still must outsmart the bovine beast that looks for the goodies, and that means sorting.

As the statistics were gathered and numbers crunched for 2024, the most noticeable theme across the board was very little change from the previous year. This reflects the steadiness and strength within Canada’s dairy industry.