When a Dairy Excellence Foundation employee learned her son’s classroom had the ability to “Adopt A Jaguar,” the inspiration came to develop a similar program a little closer to home: Adopt A Cow.
In its 10th year, the Adopt A Cow program through Discover Dairy has grown to impact 2.3 million students in classrooms across the country. The original mission of this wildly successful program was to connect students with a local dairy farm to understand where food comes from. However, not only has this program accomplished this, it has built trust and relationships with local farmers.
“Connecting with farmers and feeling like students know someone in the industry builds trust to create better consumers who make smart purchasing choices,” says Brittany Snyder, dairy education program manager at the Dairy Excellence Foundation in Pennsylvania (DEF).
The Adopt A Cow program lessons are targeted to students from kindergarten to eighth grade with local dairy farmers that act as the “host farm.” High school students and adults can also participate if they choose. The program runs from October to May of each academic year, and students receive numerous updates on their calf, such as what the calf’s diet is, where the calf is living and how much it is growing. At the end of the program, the host dairy farm provides a live virtual tour of their farm with the ability for students to ask any questions about their calf and the dairy industry. Discover Dairy’s Adopt A Cow is free to classrooms through the support of checkoff organizations nationwide.
“This program is proof how important teamwork is across the dairy industry,” Snyder says. “Being able to partner with other groups and create cohesiveness across the country has been very rewarding.”
Eir Garcia Silva, vice president of dairy experience – youth for Midwest Dairy, was instrumental in establishing a partnership with the DEF to expand the reach of Adopt A Cow in the Midwest. By partnering with the Dairy Excellence Foundation, Midwest Dairy and similar checkoff organizations have become more unified and strategic in their approach with consumers.
“By working together, we can do more,” Garcia Silva says. “Our goal is to reach youth with a sustainable nutrition story that dairy is good for people and good for the planet to ensure lifelong lovers of dairy.”
A main responsibility of Garcia Silva’s role is developing strategic planning to grow trust in dairy with students in K-12 classrooms, and Midwest Dairy understood educators were looking for ways to engage with students differently.
“Dairy checkoff and Midwest Dairy has been focused on youth wellness for over 100 years,” Garcia Silva says. “Working with youth and helping them understand the value of dairy foods and where they come from has always been a part of dairy checkoff.”
The benefits between classrooms and dairy producers involved in Adopt A Cow are numerous and connect to education about agriculture and how food is produced. For Jodi Cast, who lives on a 230-cow dairy farm, JJC Jerseys, in Beaver Crossing, Nebraska, one of the biggest producer benefits of the program is sharing the story of what the dairy industry does and how a farm operates. These benefits translate to classrooms that are adopting calves from her farm.
Jodi Cast, Nebraskan dairy farmer, talking with classrooms about her dairy farm. Photo courtesy of Center for Dairy Excellence.
“Every year, it seems like kids get further away from a family farm or any sort of agriculture,” Cast says. “Getting something in classrooms that shows where food comes from and how it is made puts a face behind their food, not just a shelf.”
Cast has participated in Adopt A Cow for several years and is continually impressed with how much students love the calves. When Cast attended an Earth Day event near Omaha with calves from the farm, students involved in the program took the time to meet her and the calves they adopted.
“As a dairy farmer, taking care of calves and seeing them every day is something I take for granted,” Cast says. “Students have an attachment to these calves, and they want us to know they love the calves like we do.”
For Paige Roberts, another dairy farmer in the Midwest Dairy region in Brooten, Minnesota, on Jer-Lindy Farms and Redhead Creamery, there are a few main benefits to farms participating in the Adopt A Cow program.
“Students in the classroom are the next generation who will be buying dairy products in the store,” Roberts says. “This offers a connection with an actual animal to where their milk comes from and shows it is not just a gallon of milk from the store. We hope when students start making their own food choices, they will remember the experience in this program and make choices to support the dairy industry.”
Since students want to visit the calf they adopt and meet dairy farmers, Adopt A Cow has offered exposure to the farm and creamery that Roberts works hard to promote. Even though not every classroom can meet its adopted calf in person, it is always a special day when a classroom can make it to the farm.
“There was one group who came to see the calves, and they were able to see the calf they adopted,” Roberts shared. “Their calf was the only one standing in the calf barn, and it came right up to meet the students. Animals give humans a genuine interaction they remember.”
As Adopt A Cow continues to grow, Snyder reflects on the impact this program has made on both the dairy industry and in classrooms across the nation. So far, Adopt A Cow includes 56 host farms that represent 30 states. Most states are in the Eastern and Midwestern regions of the country, with the hope to extend into more Western states. The program is considering including dairy farms from other countries, such as Canada, since there are approximately 2,000 Canadian classrooms that have participated in the past two years. Europe and Mexico also have classrooms engaging in the program.
With 13 of the 16 checkoff organizations in the U.S. involved as partners, Snyder emphasizes the importance of the dairy checkoff and how it has encouraged more farms to participate.
“We have heard from checkoffs and farmers that this program has helped build the trust that our partners want farmers to have in them. With farmers giving portions of their milk check to checkoffs, they can see that money is going to a good place,” Snyder says. “Farmers want to be part of this because they can make a difference with students.”
To encourage dairy producer involvement in Adopt A Cow, the DEF works with checkoffs throughout the country to find local host farms. Farms that meet certain criteria, such as having good wi-fi for the virtual farm tour component, are connected with Snyder to manage all contact information and obtain materials to share with classrooms. If a host farm prefers to interact with classrooms on its own, Discover Dairy resources are provided, such as a template with tips for presenting information to students.
For dairy farms that are considering involvement in Adopt A Cow, time commitment can be a concern. Roberts shared this same concern when first becoming involved, but encourages fellow producers that the program does not take a lot of time.
“Discover Dairy made the program easy and manageable,” Roberts says. “The entire year was laid out in advance, so I could know in August what needed to be done in May.”
Cast shares similar sentiments: “If any farmer is looking to get involved in education, this is a great way to do it. It is not scary, and we are really just talking about calves and our lives on the farm.”
Registration for the 2022-23 Adopt A Cow program is now open. There are already over 10,000 classrooms signed up for the 2022-23 program year, and the Dairy Excellence Foundation is seeking dairy producers to participate. More information for classrooms and dairy farms about how to sign up can be found on the Discover Dairy website.
