One Sunday morning this past spring as the rain continued to fall and the sun was nowhere in sight, family, friends and peers of John Klossner trudged through the muddy grasses of the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus for the Inaugural Dairy Dash. They were headed to the philanthropic 4K race that was held in memory of John, a brother of Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) fraternity’s Madison chapter, who tragically passed away last August from a brain injury suffered at the state fair.

From September 30 – October 4, Madison, Wisconsin, hosts World Dairy Expo. Continue on to read more about the seminars and virtual tours being presented this year.

Dream, take a chance and don’t be afraid to make a profit are the messages that attendees of Alltech’s flagship beef and dairy event, Global Dairy and Beef, took home with them when the two-day event came to a close on Sept. 1 in Deauville, France.

This article was #5 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2014. It was published in the Sept. 4, 2014 Extra e-newsletter, then Oct. 1, 2014 print issue. On Aug. 20, a special groundbreaking event was held for the construction of North America’s first installation of an automatic rotary parlor. The 72-stall rotary parlor being built at Mlsna East Town Dairy in Cashton, Wisconsin, will also be the largest robotic milking system in place worldwide, states Matt Daley, president and CEO of GEA Farm Technologies North America.

Getting younger people and skilled workers into dairy is a struggle not only in the U.S., but even more so in Europe, according to Dr. Nicola Blackie, keynote speaker during the Kentuckiana Dairy Exchange evening program near Campbellsville, Kentucky. She spent a month at the University of Kentucky, seeing how dairy is done in the U.S. and furthering her research on locomotion (mobility) scoring. She said the dairy industry in England is losing cow numbers and people.

Around the world and back again, the eighth annual Kentuckiana Dairy Exchange on July 29-30 covered a lot of ground. Not only did 100 attendees from both states visit five central Kentucky farms selected for top-notch management, high production, low somatic cell counts and great on-farm innovation, they also heard about dairying in Europe and early lameness detection with keynote speaker Dr. Nicola Blackie, Writtle College, England, and about a recent Indiana Department of Agriculture trade mission to Asia from Indiana Dairy Producers executive director Doug Leman.

Rain or shine, folks come back year after year to Empire Farm Days in Seneca Falls, New York. And for those who work in the farming and dairy industries, many come for the same reason.