04/29/2022

Virtual Farm Tours Serve as Educational, Industry Resource for Dairy Association

The tours' popularity grew after everything went virtual

Ever since the pandemic began, organizations have been looking for ways to use virtual offerings to provide access when in-person isn’t possible. The American Dairy Association North East was probably more prepared than other groups, since it had been offering virtual farm tours since 2018. That mean when things shut down in 2020, ADANE was able to scale up, offering the virtual tours to more students.

“There was definitely a huge demand for these educational resources that were very accessible and in a great format to provide to your students,” said Emma Andrew-Swarthout, ADANE’s director of dairy industry image. “Our largest tour took place in fall 2020. It was over 30,000 students that were on one live tour.”

The tours are livestreamed and used to showcase dairy farms, their animal husbandry practices, and how dairy products are produced on farms. All dairy farmers pay into a fund that supports ADANE and other dairy promotion programs, so the virtual tours are open to any dairy farmer in the region.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.