10-9 IAT Dairy Workers

I talked with Idaho Dairyman's Association Executive Director Bob Naerbout about some new training for workers and I learned something new about immigrants. "The animal care guidance that we will be doing will be an additional level and we expect there will be five or six levels for the employees to participate in. It is not only for current employees, it is also for others who would be interested in developing a training on working in dairy operations. We see an advantage for members of the refugee community and we have a huge refugee community in the state of Idaho, particularly in the Twin Falls area. We have had some dairies utilize those refugees. We started with about 25 to 26 employees and they happened to be from Burma. By the time everyone was finished filtering down they were down to about eight employees that wanted to continue working on the dairy. Would it be fair for me to characterize this as cow college? ( Laughter). Absolutely fair. I take we have to recognize that when you are putting someone in contact with a 1400 pound animal which is the average weight of a Holstein dairy cow there is a certain way that you can handle the animal and then there is a certain way you shouldn't.