Dairy farmer Phil Stevens, along with his wife, Erin, and son and daughter, Will and Molly, recently competed in the NBC Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge show, coming in second in the first round and third in the second round. The family team started out as the underdogs in both races.

Producing the highest quality milk is a top priority for Grand View Dairy, and the numbers prove that to be true.

Editor’s note: This article is the final installment in a series profiling sources for an in-depth feature about the Chinese dairy industry, appearing in print later this summer. Dr. Jeff Elliott laughs when asked to describe his work: “Who would have thought a farm boy from west Kentucky would end up traveling around the world thanks to cows?”

Meet Katie Sowers. She is a junior at Greenwood High School in Millerstown, Pennsylvania. Or should I say, she is a very busy junior in high school. She’s involved with many activities, including FFA, serving as historian in her local 4-H Club, showing Ayrshires and Holsteins, and participating in Pennsylvania Junior Holstein activities.

The Bateman family’s history of dairy farming in Utah spans 150 years. With nine members of the next generation considering dairy farming, its future is already taking shape.

Established in 1967, the 450-acre, second-generation Mor-Dale Farms in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, has been owned by Ralph Moyer and his wife, Crystal, since 1991.

Maier Dairy in Waunakee, Wisconsin, has transformed their hoof health program with a systematic, team-based approach that includes scheduled trimming, lameness prevention and routine monitoring.

Editor’s note: This article is the fourth in a series profiling sources for an in-depth feature about the Chinese dairy industry, appearing in print later this summer. Dr. Robert Collier is a professor and former chairman of the department of animal sciences at the University of Arizona. A former scientist with Monsanto, Collier has also served as the Donald Barron Visiting Professor at the University of Florida.

A dozen tall cement grain silos signal you’ve arrived in Hartley, Texas. Go past the town’s only gas station, and you will miss the whole of it.

Editor’s note: This article is the third in a series profiling sources for an in-depth feature about the Chinese dairy industry, appearing in print later this summer. Frank Delfino seems to spend as much time in the air as he does with his feet on the ground. As president of Delfino Nutrition and Management Inc. of Columbia, Tennessee, he consults internationally with both dairies and feed manufacturers.