Touring the World one Dairy at a Time

In January I had the opportunity to travel to Italy and China with the Cornell Dairy Science Club. These two trips were so amazing, educational, and eye-opening! The biggest impact that I had from both of these trips is the cultural experience and learning about their agricultural industry!

                  Italy is a welcoming, hard-working, traditional country! Rome is a beautiful city full of adventure and history that! Exploring Rome with friends was a great experience that I will always cherish.

 

 We toured a lot of food operations, dairy farms, and Water Buffalo farms. Every different place that we went we were welcomed with open arms and able to see almost anything we wanted to see! At one cheese plant, were watching Parmigiano-Reggiano being made in cheese operations, and we were able to stand and watch as the employees made the cheese with their hands! I was amazed that there was no automation at all. Italians are very proud of their food and the hard-work and devotion that they put into everything they produce. The love for consumers to come and see exactly what they are doing and how their product is made!

                  Like true tourist, we had the chance to visit the Forbidden City and Tiannemen Square and the Great Wall which were absolutely amazing to see! We were also able to see and understand the crazy traffic that goes through Beijing, and we saw at least three people get hit while crossing the street or riding a bike! 

We were also able to tour a few farms, and learn from students and professors from the Chinese Agricultural University! China is a large country with a lot of mouths to feed, and dairy farming is somewhat of a new concept to them! One of the farms that we visited was called Modern Dairy Cooperative, it was one of the twenty-two farms that the cooperative owns.  On the farm that there were eight eighty cow rotary milking parlors milking over 24,000 cows! This farm was built in 2008, and the milk was processed right on the farms processing plant. For such a large farm they allowed consumers to come and tour the processing plant and drive around the farm in order to understand where their food comes from, and the process for how the milk goes from the cow to the store. 

(This is the overview of Modern Dairy)

                  The biggest thing that I took away from both of these trips is the transparency that these farms and organizations had toward their consumers! This hit home for me because I think that farms in the United States struggles with transparency. Our farms are more advanced than those in Italy or China, however, consumers are trying to figure out if organic or conventional is better, or even if “Almond Milk” is the best option because its not hurting any cows! We need to educate our consumers on how their milk is produced, and that the cows’ health and comfort is very important to us! We need to help consumers see that we care for our animals to the best of our abilities day or night, freezing cold or hot temperatures we still have to care for our animals! Consumers are becoming more and more concerned about where their food is coming from. Let us speak out and tell consumers the truth by opening up your farms to curious consumers, or help explain about dairy products to people in the grocery store, and of course share the correct articles on social media so that consumers around the world can see the dedication and hard-work we devote to feeding consumers in our communities and around the world!