Dairy School

For the past couple of years, the MPO has been actively involved in the presentation of the Dairy School for final year UP Veterinary students at Onderstepoort. The Dairy School supports the three pillars of the MPO strategy: people, profit, and planet, which underpins our vision of sustainable dairy farming for everyone.

The MPO hosted a successful webinar from 23–27 November 2020.  The invitation for participation was not only for the veterinary students, but also dairy farmers and various industry consultants. The programme was packed with an encyclopedia of professional and expert presenters, which covered holistic dairy topics ranging from the global to national footprint; macro to micro dairy environment; and dairy animal physiology to dairy vet psychology. Twenty three presenters covered fascinating dairy significant topics, which amongst others, included the role of the dairy veterinarian with applied dairy and -udder health, metabolic health, the brucellosis battle, the silent threat of the bovine leukemia virus; applied dairy nutrition and feeding; dairy reproduction, repeat breeders and abortions; dairy welfare, biosecurity, dairy records, dairy product safety; as well as dairy practice challenges and trials.

Sincere appreciation to all the participants and their enthusiastic contributions.  The MPO’s involvement with future dairy veterinarians is of great importance for both commercial and communal dairies and our effort to promote sustainable dairy farming.