What is your dairy or agricultural background?
I grew up on a dairy and cash crop farm in eastern Ontario, and have been involved in the day-to-day operations, as well as the breeding decision for our Holstein herd.

What education are you bringing with you to this position?
I graduated from the University of Guelph this spring with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture.

In what areas are you pursuing a degree?
To gain a more balanced education in agriculture, I completed an honours major. Using my electives to take economics and accounting courses, I also completed a business certificate.

What activities or associations are you involved in?
During my time at the university, I was quite involved in the class and college executives, as well as Guelph’s Judging Club and Dairy Science Club. In my final year, I was on a winning dairy challenge team that competed at the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge competition and a participant on the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association student team. During the summer, I have also participated in 4-H for the past 10 years, mainly focusing on dairy calf and dairy judging.

What previous internship positions have you held?
In past summers, I have worked for a farm supply and crop input company, an agronomist, a cattle genetics company, as well as one of the University of Guelph’s beef research farms.

What are your internship responsibilities?
I will be responsible for managing the dairy herd of 60 cows in the BriteSpan Dairy Innovation Centre at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show. This will include feeding, bedding and general herd health.

What do you hope to have learned by the end of your internhip?
My goal is to gain a more thorough understanding of milk robots and appreciate the different features provided by DeLaval Voluntary Milking Systems (VMS) and Lely Astronaut A4.

What intrigues you most about Dairy Innovation Centre?
The BriteSpan Dairy Innovation Centre is an excellent location to see the industry’s most innovative technologies in action. This ranges from the robotic milkers to cow mattresses to lighting and ventilation. The amount of collaboration and coordination between various companies within the dairy industry required to make the entire project a success is quite remarkable.

What can you do to make a meaningful impact during your internship?
It will be important that I ensure the cows are kept in good health and adapt well to their new facilities so that the (robotic milking systems) can perform to their full potential. This will help farmers make more informed decisions about what types of technology they should implement on their own farms.

What do you think will be the most challenging aspect of your internship duties?
Rather than viewing it as a challenge, I believe the internship will be an excellent opportunity to learn as much as I can while working in the barn, as well as meet other enthusiastic dairy producers and industry leaders.

What do you hope to do after the completion of your internship?
I intend on continuing to work in the dairy industry. This could be a service job in the areas of nutrition or genetics, or it could be returning to the home farm.

Do you want to remain involved in the dairy or agricultural industry? If so, why?
The dairy industry is certainly where I would like to focus in the future because my skill set is best suited to work with dairy cattle, and it’s what I am most interested in. I appreciate how the dairy industry is comprised of so many knowledgeable, innovate and goal-oriented people that are very passionate about making continued progress to improve the efficiency and viability of their operations.  PD