Week 2 - Friday:

Today was farm visits all day. In the morning we visited a modern dairy farm using a carousel style milking parlor milking 18 cows at a time. He milks on average 300-350 cows three times a day, 4:00 am, 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. It is a family owned farm with focus on milk production. Breeding is done 100% through AI. The owner that did the tour was a son and veterinarian by background but most of his time now is spent evaluating current and implementing new practices, to continue to improve milk production without impacting the health of the animals negatively. We were able to watch part of the 11:00 am milking. Students saw the operation from start (calves one day old) to finish (milk in tanks ready for pick up). The carousel system was German made. It is much easier to pasture dairy cows in Brazil than the U.S. The cows were mostly all Holstein but you could see a few crossed with Brahma. This farm sat on top of a huge hill and the view was nothing like anything you would see in Ohio. An interesting experience for those who are very interested in dairy production as well as those students who had never seen a dairy farm. This farmer also produced beef cows, so we stopped at that section of the farm also. We ate a wonderful lunch at Restaurant Churrrascar.

In the afternoon we loaded the bus and continued to drive higher into the mountains. The O-H-I-O gives you some indication of how high we were. We arrived at the top to observe a different dairy farm set up. There were six smaller farms located side by side, three on one side of the river and three on the other, whose focus was on sustaining the needs of the family and then anything extra would go to market. Each farm owner realized that making a profit individually would be extremely difficult so they created their own cooperative. Of these six farms, four were in the same extended family. Over time, 51 farms have joined the cooperative producing milk and milk products with 106 total farms participating in producing other crops. The cooperative built their own dairy called Leite de Campo and we were able to taste their fresh milk and liquid yogurt. The milk is sold at the grocery in half gallon ziploc bags and the yogurt by the bottle. We sampled coconut, pineapple, and strawberry yogurt. Ummmm good on a hot summer day.