Dairy industry needs to brag a little

Don’t brag about yourself, what you do or what you have accomplished.
While this is surely a directive in some weighty volume of proper behavior, the referenced behavior is that of individuals – not the necessary behavior of a vital, exciting, important industry.
Pride. Dairy has done a pretty good job of letting folks know that milk is a nutritious and safe food. The dairy industry should be proud that they came together and spearheaded this effort on their own.
That 15 cents per hundredweight paid by producers for every hundredweight of milk produced in Ohio initiates and supports promotion, education and research.
It would be easy to let our involvement in promotion stop there.
Way too easy considering there are only so many hours in a day … and the cows corral most of them.
“Extra” hours invested in promoting your industry are hours well invested toward the future.
Promotion. Promotion takes many forms and many talents.
The hundreds of school tours from preschool to high school form positive impressions, maybe the only impressions, of farms and animals that those students will ever get.
County fair displays show the public well cared for cattle, families caring for those cattle and sparkling white milk coming out of clean cows at the milking parlors.
Other types of promotion take place through the Mideast United Dairy Industry Association folks, where the checkoff dollars go, teacher education, cultivating promotion opportunities with food companies and grocery stores.
Processor organizations also develop dairy promotion campaigns.
When you are looking for opportunities for promotion, be prepared with some current statistics to pull out of your pocket.
“Current” statistics to use now are from 2003.
Counts. Here are a few are counts as of Jan. 1, 2004. Sometime after April, official statistics will be published for all of 2004.