Dairy Demonstration Teaches Fairgoers Modern Processes
August 19, 2019
By IAN MUNRO
Daily News-Record 8/19/19
HARRISONBURG — Three times a day, LaVaun Janney, the instructor for Southland Dairy Farms, teaches a crowd about the dairy milking process at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.
“It’s about why it’s important to have dairy in your diet and how farms take care of cows,” Janney said.
And this is no hypothetical teaching situation. Janney has a live cow and goes through the same steps farmers use to milk their livestock.
The trailer, dubbed a mobile dairy classroom, is rigged with all the modern devices that can be found in dairy farms across the country to do the live milking.
Some of these modern devices include an automated milking system and methane digesters, which help turn cow manure into biogas, an energy source, and fertilizer.
The whole milking process only takes five to seven minutes using technology, Janney said.
“We want to make sure people don’t think that dairy farmers are out there just milking by hand,” she said.
Janney will be heading to Russell County schools next week and will be back to the Valley for the Shenandoah County Fair the following week.
County fair season is actually not the busiest time of the year for the mobile dairy classroom. Most of the time, the group presents at schools, Janney said.
“Really our main focus is schools,” she said. “County fairs are just a great way to fill the calendar and visit with the general public.”
Janney covers the whole of Virginia, but Southland Dairy and its partner group, Southwest Dairy, teach similar programs from Texas to Virginia.
The group receives funding from farmers in Virginia, Janney said.
“Our biggest thing is that drinking real milk and not milk alternatives is healthy and nutritious and the best option,” she said. “And that dairy farmers care for their cattle and work exceptionally hard to care of the cows, their land and the environment.”
Daily News-Record 8/19/19
HARRISONBURG — Three times a day, LaVaun Janney, the instructor for Southland Dairy Farms, teaches a crowd about the dairy milking process at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.
“It’s about why it’s important to have dairy in your diet and how farms take care of cows,” Janney said.
And this is no hypothetical teaching situation. Janney has a live cow and goes through the same steps farmers use to milk their livestock.
The trailer, dubbed a mobile dairy classroom, is rigged with all the modern devices that can be found in dairy farms across the country to do the live milking.
Some of these modern devices include an automated milking system and methane digesters, which help turn cow manure into biogas, an energy source, and fertilizer.
The whole milking process only takes five to seven minutes using technology, Janney said.
“We want to make sure people don’t think that dairy farmers are out there just milking by hand,” she said.
Janney will be heading to Russell County schools next week and will be back to the Valley for the Shenandoah County Fair the following week.
County fair season is actually not the busiest time of the year for the mobile dairy classroom. Most of the time, the group presents at schools, Janney said.
“Really our main focus is schools,” she said. “County fairs are just a great way to fill the calendar and visit with the general public.”
Janney covers the whole of Virginia, but Southland Dairy and its partner group, Southwest Dairy, teach similar programs from Texas to Virginia.
The group receives funding from farmers in Virginia, Janney said.
“Our biggest thing is that drinking real milk and not milk alternatives is healthy and nutritious and the best option,” she said. “And that dairy farmers care for their cattle and work exceptionally hard to care of the cows, their land and the environment.”
