NMC Regional Meeting 2025 draws attendees from 3 continents
NMC: The Global Milk Quality Organization attracted more than 125 milk quality professionals from two Canadian provinces and 18 U.S. states – from Idaho to Florida – and two more countries – Denmark and Australia – to its regional meeting, held July 22-24, in Rochester, New York (N.Y.), USA. The event’s attendees included dairy processors, veterinarians, dairy producers, researchers, milking equipment dealers, dairy suppliers and students.
“Through the NMC Regional Meeting, we helped dairy professionals identify and overcome barriers that hinder milk quality,” stated Rick Watters, AgroChem USA, LLC senior health advisor and a 2025 NMC Regional Meeting Committee co-chair. “Those in attendance gained hands-on experiences and took home practical information to further the dairy industry’s pursuit in producing and marketing outstanding quality milk.”
The NMC Regional Meeting showcased a variety of topics, including bedding management, non-traditional measures of milk quality, dairy farm sustainability, sensor technologies, artificial intelligence and smart camera use. Additionally, some attendees participated in specialized short courses that addressed milking system evaluations, troubleshooting bacteria counts in conventional milking systems and automated milking systems, milking system design and analysis, the “ABCs” of milking machines, mastitis microbes, milking routine and wash system analysis. Furthermore, some participants toured Bonna Terra Farms, Bloomfield, N.Y., Rudgers Registered Jerseys, Attica, N.Y., and Reyncrest Farms, Corfu, N.Y. – all known for their excellence in producing high-quality milk.
Presentation highlights
Felipe Peña-Mosca, a post-doc at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., US, discussed bedding management and interpreting bedding bacterial counts. He explained that cost, availability and cow comfort often guide bedding choices for dairy cattle. However, dairy managers should also consider the potential impact of bedding on udder health. In confinement systems, bedding materials frequently come in contact with the mammary gland, acting as sources of environmental pathogens that can increase bacterial load on teat skin and increase the risk of intramammary infections. Bedding bacterial counts (BBC) quantify the presence of mastitis-causing bacteria in bedding materials. In general, organic bedding (e.g., sawdust, straw and recycled manure solids [RMS]) is associated with higher BBC than inorganic bedding. Often, RMS has higher BBC and has been associated with poorer udder health compared to other bedding types. “However, the considerable variability in BBC and udder health observed among farms using similar bedding materials highlights the importance of bedding management,” Peña-Mosca explained.
The Cornell post-doc summarized that when interpreting BBC, it is important not to rely solely on total counts, as they may not accurately reflect the abundance of mastitis-relevant bacterial groups. “Focusing on specific groups (such as coliforms, Klebsiella, Streptococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp.) provides more meaningful insight into bedding-associated mastitis risk,” he stated. “Dry matter (DM) and organic matter (OM) are key drivers of bacterial growth, with low DM and high OM associated with elevated BBC. Monitoring and managing these characteristics may contribute to keeping BBC low, although the usefulness of OM monitoring may be more limited in organic bedding materials where it appears harder to modify. Clean (i.e., low BBC) and dry, ready-to-use bedding are essential and remain a key target across all bedding systems. Once bedding is placed in the stalls, it becomes rapidly contaminated, reinforcing the importance of stall management practices (such as frequent removal of soiled material and daily addition of fresh bedding) to keep BBC low and reduce exposure of environmental pathogens to the mammary gland. While the use of RMS is commonly associated with higher mastitis risk, further processing through secondary methods (i.e., composting or dryers) and more notably through combinations of digesters and secondary methods have been shown to be effective strategies for reducing BBC and mitigating mastitis-associated risks.”
Milk quality beyond SCC, SPC
Nicole Martin, Cornell University assistant research professor in dairy foods microbiology, explained that consumers have near-endless options for purchasing products in the dairy aisle, including a myriad of non-dairy beverages, yogurt and cheese-like, plant-based products and other substitutes. “Studies show that consumers are interested in plant-based alternatives – primarily for perceived ethical or sustainability reasons,” she commented. “However, they still prefer the sensory experience, including taste and texture of dairy and other animal-based products. Therefore, ensuring the quality of processed dairy products is of the utmost importance to capitalize on the advantages dairy has over alternatives. The quality of a processed dairy product is defined by microbial, physicochemical and sensorial parameters that are impacted by various extrinsic factors at the farm, during transportation, during processing and packaging, and during retail and consumer storage.”
The assistant research professor noted that traditional measures of milk quality focus on animal/herd health, hygiene and nutrition status. However, most of these measures have little bearing on the performance of processed dairy products – except somatic cell count (SCC).
Regarding standard plate count (SPC), which measures total bacteria, Martin said this measurement should be <5,000 cfu/mL. SPC serves as an overall indicator of process control during milking, milk handling and storage. She also mentioned other microbial parameters, including laboratory pasteurization count (LPC), coliform count (CC) and preliminary incubation (PI) count. “These measures determine levels of certain relevant groups of bacteria that may give information about hygiene and practices at the time of milking, in the milking system or during storage and handling of raw milk,” Martin commented. “While all of these measures of milk quality play a role in farm, animal and milk management, they do not directly correlate with finished product quality as most bacteria found in raw milk are sensitive to pasteurization.”
Martin described three “bacteria exceptions” when it comes to pasteurization being effective. They include cold-loving bacteria that grow during bulk tank storage and produce enzymes that survive pasteurization, ultimately impacting the quality of finished products; thermoduric sporeforming bacteria that survive pasteurization and go on to grow under finished product storage conditions; and thermoduric non-sporeforming bacteria that survive pasteurization and grow under finished product storage conditions.
Procuring high-quality milk
Kaitlyn Briggs, fairlife LLC dairy welfare manager, shared that at the heart of fairlife’s success is a simple but powerful belief: better milk makes a better product. “That belief begins at the farm,” she stated. Beyond sourcing high-quality milk at the farm level, fairlife seeks milk from farms that adhere to robust animal welfare and sustainability standards.
For fairlife, milk quality standards include low bacterial counts, low somatic cell counts and immediate chilling of milk. The fastest-growing milk brand in the United States requires animal welfare standards that are based on the Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM) Animal Care program and the Validus Dairy certification program. “Due to fairlife’s filtration technology, these standards are non-negotiable because raw milk quality directly impacts the performance of fairlife’s advanced processing technologies and the nutritional integrity of the final product,” Briggs reported.
Precision technologies help improve health and performance
Julio Giordano, Cornell University professor in the department of animal science, discussed improving dairy herd health via automated monitoring technologies. “Precision technologies for monitoring behavioral, physiological and performance parameters of cows provide multiple opportunities to improve herd performance and management,” he stated. However, the potential value of adopting precision livestock farming varies largely for different farms and areas of herd management. “For farms with little to no intervention and not well-defined health monitoring programs, automated health monitoring technology can contribute to more accurate and timely identification of more cows that benefit from treatments or health-promoting management interventions. On these farms, technology might help improve productivity through more detection and treatment of cows with disease.”
Furthermore, Giordano noted that on farms with intensive and systematic monitoring programs, automated health monitoring technology can reduce labor needs and cow manipulation at the same level of detection as intensive traditional health monitoring programs. “For these farms, it might be reasonable to implement health monitoring programs that rely primarily on alerts generated by automated health monitoring systems combined with minimally invasive, less intensive visual inspection of cows or other traditional methods to identify cows with health disorders.”
Piloting new practices
Elsa Vasseur, associate professor in the department of animal science and co-chairholder of the Research and Innovation Chair in Animal Welfare and Artificial Intelligence at McGill University, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada, described Animal Welfare and Artificial Intelligence (WELL-E), which was launched in 2023 to conduct pilot research on two farms and work directly with staff and management to co-develop and pilot new practices and techniques for managing animal welfare – to be disseminated across Canada and beyond.
As one example, Vasseur shared research about transitioning herds from a movement-restricted system to having regular outdoor access in a practical way – while enhancing animal welfare and ethics. “These research studies, conducted in the context of graduate and undergraduate training, have focused on increasing ‘movement opportunities’ for cattle, both in the home environment (e.g., bed length, bedding depth) and through the provision of movement outside the stall – in the form of outdoor access to fulfil cattle behavioral needs,” she reported. “Living lab experiments have allowed us to look further into the elements that modulate the outings themselves – focusing on elements of handling and emotions (of both the cows and humans involved), and immediately delivering recommendations with the best benefits for physical cow health (leg and hoof) and mental health (behavioral needs, welfare), which also adhere to real-world constraints faced by producers.”
Using cameras without violating privacy rights
“The rapid evolution of camera technology and corresponding shifts in legal frameworks necessitate a thorough understanding of how producers can utilize these tools for security and surveillance without infringing upon employee privacy rights,” stated Emily Skowronski, who works for Cattle Care. She reviewed critical aspects of this complex issue and provided a comprehensive guide for employers operating within the United States.
During her presentation, Skowronski shared a variety of use cases and practical examples of camera deployment in the dairy farm. Common applications include theft prevention, monitoring for safety compliance, dispute resolution and managing public-facing areas. Additionally, she talked about the legal framework governing workplace surveillance, best practices for camera use, camera implementation (hidden versus visible cameras), camera placement (work zones versus private areas, such as restrooms) and federal and state regulations.
Future events
Mark your 2026 calendars for NMC’s “big events.” The NMC 65th Annual Meeting is scheduled for January 26-29, in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. Next year’s NMC Regional Meeting will be held June 16-18, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA.
