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High quality milk necessary for dairy industry

A veterinarian says U.S. dairy farmers have the responsibility to send as high quality of a product off the farm as possible.

Roger Thomson with Milk Quality IQ Consulting tells Brownfield consumers demand high quality milk and to compete on the global market there’s no room for substandard products.  “We’re at 14-16 percent export again and we need even more, look at our milk price.  The quality of our products now has to meet the demands of what the EU wants, what China wants, what other countries want.”

Thomson says mastitis is the most expensive disease on a dairy farm which has the greatest impact on milk quality.  “There’s almost nothing that we do to the milk to make it better.  We can pasteurize it, homogenize it, put flavorings in it, but still, nothing changes much once it leaves the farm.”

He says improved milk quality can mean more productivity from cows, less expenses for farmers as well as a longer shelf life for retailers and a safer product for consumers.

Thomson spoke with Brownfield during the Great Lakes Regional Dairy Conference.

AUDIO: Interview with Roger Thomson