Driving Assignment #1 by: Abby, Kieran and Andrew

What is meant by "Biosecurity" and why is it important to our farmers and ranchers?

Biosecurity is the measures that are taken to prevent the spread of diseases, viruses, and harmful organisms in order to minimize the risk of harmful illnesses. The risk of harmful illnesses effect the plants and/or animals which cause food to be discarded. Today, when we went to the Pontotoc Experiment Station, which focuses mostly on the production of sweet potatoes, Dr. Lorin Harvey explained some of their precautionary measures they take to decrease the spread of pests and diseases. One example of biosecurity they use is they never enter the laboratory after they are out in the field or in the greenhouse with the crops. This is to make sure that they don’t bring any potential diseases from outside into the laboratory with all of the young potato plants. They also have precautionary measures they take even entering the greenhouse. They have two doors that leads access to the greenhouse, but only one is opened at a time to prevent any pests that could potentially get in the greenhouse and transmit viruses to the sweet potatoes. 

Another example of implementation biosecurity was the dairy we stopped at on the first day. Full Circle Dairy asked us not to interact with any of the cows or calves while we are there. Any one of us could potentially carry stuff from the animals we work with at home and from even traveling to the other places we visited that day that could be transmitted. 

Farmers implement these precautions to not only limit the amount of pests and disease on their own farm, but to prevent those potential pests and diseases from leaving their farm and contaminating other farms.

-Abby, Kieran, Andrew

Later on our trip we experienced more biosecurity when entering the poultry houses at MSU.

Full Circle Dairy by: Angela

Full Circle Dairy was our last stop of day one. We were welcomed by the Watts family, Phillip, Ms. Cindy and Mr. Greg. We first saw all of the different ingredients that goes into their cattle feed. It was so cool seeing how they weigh all the different ingredients to a specific number and then mix it all together in a feed wagon, to make the feed. 

After, we got to see how they dry their sand that is used in the cow beds and then it is reused! They leave the sand to dry for 90 days before they put it back in the barn! Dry sand is very important because it helps prevent mastitis. Afterwards, we saw their lagoon which has 5 million gallons of water, Wow! 

Then we got to see some cows!! First we saw the two year old's and learned about how they eat and how they are kept cool during the hot summer. There are fans that are always on and water that sprays a mist and is on a timer. This system allows water evaporation to occur, which is the best way for cows to cool down. 

Then, we went to one of my favorite parts… the calves! They keep the calves in this area from only days old to 6 months. They have robotic feeders which read each calves tag and then allows them to drink their milk! These robotic feeders also prevent them from drinking more than they need as it knows how many times each calf has gone to drink milk, and will not give them anymore after they reach the allowed amount per day. While we were there, we also got to see how they make the milk for the calves! Hand mixing the formula for all of them would not be efficient, and frankly probably very tiring. Instead, they have a machine that pours out the right amount of formula and water into a blender. The blender mixes it all together and then the milk gets sent down tubes that run to the faux teet that the calves drink from! 

When we said our goodbyes to the calves, we got to the most interesting part of the tour in my opinion! We were able to see the process of milking the cows. The Full Circle Dairy uses a rotary milker! This very efficient milking process allows them to milk 500 cows an hour! The cows get milked 3 times a day, and it only takes 6-7 minutes. The milk gets sent to tanks which take 3 hours to fill and transports the milk to where it will get tested. Milk needs to be tested multiple times to insure that there is no bacteria in it as if it does not meet quality standards then it will be rejected. 

The milk that comes from Full Circle Dairy goes to many places like Dairy Queen and McDonalds! This concluded our tour of the dairy, but our amazing tour guides handed out goody bags and ice cream sandwiches that we all enjoyed! We are all very thankful for being able to tour the Full Circle Dairy as we learned so much and had lots of fun!