Activity at the Carlton dairy farm near Rockmart, Georgia, picks up considerably in the fall, and it’s not just because of harvest. In late September, visitors start streaming onto the farm to wander through the farm’s five-acre corn maze and take home a pumpkin for Halloween. This will be the 11th season for the farm’s pumpkin patch and corn maze. “We have people who have been out here every year for the past 10 years,” said Brad Carlton, who runs the farm with his father Bobby.

About three years ago, a visitor to the Michigan State University Extension office in Saint Johns happened to mention a beginner English class taught at his church. Many of the students were Hispanic dairy workers who wanted to learn English as a second language. MSU Extension dairy specialist Faith Cullens thought she had the perfect tool for the class: A bilingual magazine called El Lechero, then published as an insert in Progressive Dairyman.

Bruce Whitmire is doing everything he can to stay off “The List.” The list in this case is made up of dairies that have attempted to sell cows for slaughter that have unsafe drug residues in their tissues. Whitmire, herd manager at the Si-Ellen Dairy near Jerome, Idaho, probably has little to worry about, thanks to long-standing practices at the dairy and some new drug-tracking software.

This article was #22 of the Top 25 most well-read articles on www.progressivedairy.com in 2012. to jump to the article. It was published in the January 21, 2012 issue. Click here for the full list of the Top 25. In addition to milk, cows also produce a fair amount of methane. Dairies across the country are developing new ways to utilize that byproduct of milk production. One instance is a project under way at Fair Oaks in Indiana to use biogas from its anaerobic digesters to power a fleet of milk trucks operated by Ruan Transport Corp.