“The turnout is incredible. It shows there is a definite interest in this,” said Jayne Sebright, executive director of the Pennsylvania Center for Dairy Excellence, addressing the crowd at the On-Farm Processing Forum held in Harrisburg in late 2016.

Organic food sales in the U.S. reached new records in 2015, hitting a benchmark of $43.3 billion. With the rising demand for organic milk, more dairy operations are choosing robotic milkers to help increase milk production, answer labor issues and help with herd health.

Ten years ago, when Gregg and Doug Ode of Brandon, South Dakota, chose to relocate their 30-year-old Royalwood Farms dairy operation back to the farm they’d grown up on, something was different.

Are my heifers growing well enough? Are automatic calf feeders best for my calves? How do I get heifers to calve in on time? How can I make sure they are productive when they start milking?

A couple of years ago, Al and Sue Mensen spent a lot of their time milking cows. They were milking 110 cows in a 70-cow tiestall barn. The overflow cows were housed in a freestall barn and ushered to the milking barn twice a day, every day.

If you are looking for higher yields, stockpiled feed for the summer slump, as well as better soil, growing corn for your cows to graze instead of perennial grasses may be the answer.

It was an accident that began one farm’s journey to direct sales of raw milk and processed dairy products. After dairy farmer Layne Klein was injured and sold the milking herd, he and wife, Beth, decided to try a different mode of dairy farming – selling products directly to customers.

Milk may no longer be an item customers will go out of the way to purchase, even when it is being bottled right at the farm, as it is at Way-Har Farms in Bernville, Pennsylvania. The dairy, run today by William and Lolly Lesher, began bottling its own milk on-farm in the 1970s, utilizing 60 percent of their production.

Emily and Jay Montgomery came home to Highland Farm, operated today by Emily’s father and brother, William and Zack Bryant, in 2006. The farm, located in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, has been in the family for seven generations.

Video game company Nintendo released the new game 1-2-Switch in March. In the game, players play one-on-one in several contests including Wild West duels, dance offs and a cow-milking competition.