This week on the FarmHouse, a podcast by Lancaster Farming, we're welcoming in Jayne Sebright.
Sebright is the executive director of the Center for Dairy Excellence and the Dairy Excellence Foundation, two Pennsylvania-based organizations dedicated to supporting dairy farms.
"The center is focused on today. We focus on resources, programming and grants that can help our farmers and our industry today, where our Dairy Excellence Foundation is focused on tomorrow," Sebright said, explaining the difference between the two. "It's a 501(c)(3) entirely privately funded through donations and grants to bring scholarships, curriculum, internships, programming to that next generation of dairy."
While working with the center and the foundation, Sebright helped found the Adopt a Cow program, which connects students to local farmers and promotes dairy education in elementary schools.
The program started in 2011, with about 100 classrooms participating in the first five years. Since then, Adopt a Cow has grown quickly, with 70,000 classrooms now participating, and is supported by 14 dairy checkoffs across the country.
"The Adopt a Cow program has such an impact on our next generation, because they're learning firsthand about the care and stewardship that goes into producing the milk that they drink and the dairy products that they eat," Sebright said.
While farming is often thought of a being an "old school" job, Sebright was quick to point out that the dairy industry is always innovating.
"We have a lot of farms that are adopting robotic technology, whether it's rotary parlors that are used, robotic technology to prep cows, or whether it's cows with activity monitors," Sebright said. "Anything you can automate through robotics or automation is really beneficial on a farm. And there's a lot of cool things going on in that area right now."
Sebright also spoke on bovine influenza A and praised Pennsylvania dairy farmers for taking proactive biosecurity steps to keeping their herds safe.
"They've ramped up their monitoring of who's coming in and out of their farm and they've ramped up their awareness around how cattle are moving in and out of their farm," she said. "If they are moving cattle in the farm, they're making sure they know where those cattle are coming from. They're making sure that they're healthy."
Addressing consumers who may be concerned, she stressed that dairy products are still safe.
"The biggest thing to know is that milk and dairy products are safe, as long as they're pasteurized," she said.
She added that anyone buying raw milk should also be safe if they're buying from a licensed seller, but reminded consumers, "Make sure you're buying from a farm that has biosecurity protocols in place."
