Volume 17: Issue 3 April 2015
BOTTOM LINE
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his special issue is dedicated to the dairy cow, heifer and calf.
The Dairyland Initiative combines dairy animal health, production and behavior research into a web-based information center and buildingassessment program to improve cow health. The initiative incorporates research-supported biological standards to enhance current engineering practices, while producing a facility that is economically viable and welfare-friendly. Visit https:// thedairylandinitiative. vetmed.wisc.edu for more information.
Sharing ideas, solutions, resources and experiences that help dairy producers succeed.
What does caring look like? MITCH BREUNIG PDPW President, dairy farmer
There is a four-letter word that has become a key ingredient in many products and services today. CARE. Dairy farmers are told to communicate about how much they care. We are reminded of Theodore Roosevelt’s words: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” You can probably think of several products or services whose claim to fame is that they care more than the next product or service. Let’s be careful here. If everybody says they care, then the word care has no teeth. When caring becomes a commodity, dairy farmers lose a key ingredient that has made our people and products special for generations. THE CARING COMMODITY We need to find a way to keep our caring relevant and valuable to our consumers and neighbors. The good news is that dairying at its very core is a caring and nurturing profession. There is no
Near Juneau, Wis., Craig and Nicole Schmidt of Schmidt Family Farm stand with their three children, Caden, 4; Abby 2; and Connor, 4 months.
way our cows would produce as they do without our kindness and care. There is no way our soils could produce and renew themselves without our careful attention to balance and detail. There is no way that our rural communities could thrive if we did not care about being productive employers and sustainable businesses over generations. We’ve done all this caring consistently for years, even
when no one else cared. Sometimes it seems thankless, like nobody cares how much we care until they care to know. Then we feel put on the defensive. There is no need to be defensive, though. We got this. We’ve been caring for generations, and the evidence is in our productive soils, our long-standing herds and our farms sustained over generations. See CARING, on page 2
Professional Dairy Producers I 1-800-947-7379 I www.pdpw.org ®