Dairy farming is a form of agriculture that is concerned with the production of milk. This milk will be processed and manufactured into a range of commercial products, including cheese, butter, yoghurt and of course milk itself.
Dairy farms will house their own herds of dairy cows that will provide the farms milk. The herds will be left out to pasture for much of the year (depending on the climate) and will have their food supplemented by food sources grown at the dairy farm. Many modern dairy farms will also process the milk they collect on-site rather than sending it out to a dairy factory.
The female cows, known as sows, are the only ones that will produce milk, so dairy farms will sell any male calves born on the farm to be used for veal or sometimes for breeding. The sows produce milk whilst they are lactating – a side effect of the cow having given birth. As such, the sows are on a constant cycle of insemination and pregnancy and rest, a cycle that takes between 12 and 16 months.
Dairy farming has been part of farming tradition for thousands of years and started with farmer’s hand-milking their cows directly into pails. In the beginning, dairy farming would be one small activity of a regular farm, although nowadays dairy farming is a large industry and many specialist dairy farms exist around the world.
More modern milking parlours have automatic milking cups that are attached to the cow’s udders via a gentle vacuum pump. In rotary milking parlours, cows will stand on a moving floor and circle the parlour whilst being milked. The milking process takes around 5 minutes per cow.
The largest producer of dairy products worldwide is India, followed by the United States, Germany, Pakistan and China. New Zealand is the largest exporter of dairy products whilst Japan is the largest importer. The top four dairy states in the United States are California, Wisconsin, New York and Idaho.