(Chloe Knorr is a Maidstone student attending Lakeland College and an employee at Delta Dairy just outside of Maidstone.)
MAIDSTONE — During the week of April 11 to 16, I had the opportunity to attend the Young Leader Convention (YLC) which was a part of the National Holstein Convention held in Montreal, Quebec this year.
I met many industry members along with fellow young producers of the dairy industry from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island. Over the week, I attended presentations that explained more in-depth the future of farming through genetics, conformation and herd health management. They provided the young leaders with practical learning opportunities to give us a better understanding of classifying in the dairy industry and why things are measured the way they are.
I attended the spring show held in Victoriaville where we had the opportunity to examine the animals on our own, discuss the cows with our peers and individually judge the animals before the judge made his final decision. This was interesting as I got to hear about others' reasoning behind why one cow was preferred.
During the show, I was able to walk through stalls and see multiple family lines along with comparing those that had the same sire, seeing if they had similar qualities to one another and which sires would be options to use on the farm among the Jerseys and Holsteins.
Coming from a mostly Jersey farm, it was interesting to see what a judge looked for in qualities and I was able to get a close-up picture of the grand champion Jersey, Enniskillen Joel Marygold of Pierre Boulet Inc.
I toured three farms, Ferme Estermann, Ferme Montcalm & Freres and the MacDonald College Farm, all of which milked differently and worked in their way to properly manage their farms.
I also attended an annual general meeting, experiencing the format and pace of the meeting along with being able to vote on new resolutions brought forth since the last meeting. I was able to see how they were either passed or declined and the voting process, which the young leaders also got to take part in.
We went to the Habs vs Bruins game in Montreal during my week there and the enthusiasm for both teams was amazing, but the conversations going on about cows and producers' farms while waiting for the game to start showed the number of people who came to Montreal for both.
This was a memorable experience which has provided me with more insight into the future of dairy in Canada.
