Educating kids on the dairy industry and agriculture is important, especially for Wyoming County.
So why not start teaching them young?
A class from Noah’s Ark Preschool, consisting of 3-year-old students, made its way to Perry to tour Emerling Farms Tuesday morning, which is home to Michaela Emerling, the 2016 Wyoming County Dairy Princess.
Although she couldn’t be there in person, she provided comments on why educating students on agriculture is important.
“The dairy industry has advanced over the years and I want to help educate the general population on some of these changes that are improving the industry,” she said. “I would also like to get more school districts to go on field trips so they can see how a dairy farm operates.”
And these 3-year-olds got to see just that.
The morning started out by going over what makes a dairy product. Liz Emerling showed the kids various dairy products found in the grocery store to show the versatility of milk.
Yogurt, cream cheese, chocolate milk, pizza cheese — all things she had on hand to show students.
When she presented strawberry milk, one student made it known that that’s their “super favorite kind of milk.”
“(The tour) gives them the basic knowledge of where products come from,” Liz Emerling said. “(Dairy products) don’t just come off the store shelf.”
The tour showed everything the farm has to offer: where the cows are fed; where the food comes from; where they’re milked; where the calves stay; and even some pigs, a donkey and a horse.
What’s more, students were exposed to all the technology that Emerling Farms — and the industry itself — has to offer.
“Cow comfort” is a huge deal on the farm, and there are a host of different technologies such as automated fans and sprinklers to keep cows comfortable.
Farms are also innovative in the ways they recycle, such as with anaerobic digesters — turning manure into energy — or teaming up with other businesses to provide feed for cows.
Liz Emerling talked about how farmers today are more akin to data analysts than the old man in overalls. Farmers now monitor milk nutrients in real time as they’re milked and can even monitor fitness with what is essentially a cow Fitbit.
And all of this technology needs to have a person behind it.
“We have specialists in each area and they’re all educated and knowledgable people,” Liza Emerling said. “That’s why they do their job so well.”
Other forms of agriculture are advancing as well.
For instance, it’s not uncommon to see a tractor driving itself through a Wyoming County field. Tractors these days use GPS systems to know where exactly is the optimal place to plant a seed, relative to other seeds, how far into the ground, etc.
Even drones are used to single out a patch of crops that may be affected with disease.
And now these preschoolers have been exposed to all the industry can offer.
“Yes, they are young to learn this,” Liz Emerling said, “but they can also teach their parents and grandparents that don’t realize.”
Let it be known though, advancements in technology doesn’t mean farmers are working any less. Cows still need to be milked three times a day, 365 days out of the year, and 70-hour work weeks are typical when harvesting crops.
“Farmers are the hardest working people I know,” Michaela Emerling said. “There is much more that goes into a gallon of milk than people realize.”
Source: The Daily News
