Crop Alert

Mike Stanyard, Team Leader, Field Crops
Northwest New York Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops

Dialing Into Your Best Dairy - * New Podcast Series *

Dialing Into Your Best Dairy
A Podcast Series​
Hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension Regional Dairy Specialists and Cornell CALS PRO-DAIRY

Episodes in this series will discuss management practices and tips to reach your herd's full genetic potential. In 8 episodes, PRO-DAIRY and CCE Dairy Specialists will discuss the different life stages of the dairy cow, including raising calves through the milk phase and weaning; managing weaned heifers up to freshening; making decisions about which replacements to keep including talking about inventory, disease prevention, and culling decisions; feeding and nutrition management during lactation; facilities, time management, and ventilation considerations throughout lactation; and management factors around reproduction, gestation, and the dry period.

COVID-19 Forward NY Safety Plans Required and Reduce Risk

Essential agricultural businesses including those who have remained open during the current pandemic need to have a Forward NY Safety Plan in place. The plan outlines how your business is going to keep employees and customers safe as New York re-opens for business. Each plan must include 3 key elements:

• People: that's your family, employees, customers, delivery people and consultants who interact at your business and the way your business will help to maintain social distance among those people.
• Place: addresses the environment in which you do business, share tools and equipment, receive supplies, and make sales of your product. This section deals with protective equipment, cleaning and hygiene, and communication of how your business plans reduce the chances of spreading the virus among people.
• Process: focuses on mandatory health screening, contact tracing and disinfection. How will you screen employees to reduce the chances of sick people entering the work place? Your plan for contact tracing explains how your business will gather required information about everyone who visits your business. This list would be used by local health authorities to trace all contacts if someone at your business were to be confirmed positive for COVID-19. Your process also defines how you will disinfect contaminated areas should someone who has been in direct contact with your business test positive for the virus.

A Team of Extension Professionals from across New York have developed resources to help your farm business meet this mandate and reduce the risk to your business for failure to protect your people. The resources can be accessed at the Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development website: https://agworkforce.cals.cornell.edu/ny-forward-business-safety-plan/. They include: an introductory video, fillable templates for using to write plans based upon the NYS Forward NY Safety Plan Template, color coded examples and considerations to follow while completing the template, a step by step guide to accessing and using the template documents and information about webinars and recording of the same for producers with different types of businesses.