Alltech recognized Robert Erhard, former general manager at the Nestlé Dairy Farming Institute, as the first recipient of the Alltech China Dairy Hero award. Alltech launched the program to recognize dairy farmers who go above and beyond the call of duty.
The Dairy Heroes program, which honors the important role dairy farmers have in feeding a growing global population, was launched in 2013. Alltech has brought the Dairy Hero campaign to China to salute dairy professionals across the country as well as increase the general public’s understanding of the dairy industry. The campaign will recognize ordinary people who make extraordinary contributions to China’s dairy industry, from farm managers to technical experts or young professionals.
“Long hours, inclement weather, rising feed costs, rollercoaster milk prices, labor management, environmental stewardship…the list goes on and on for the load a dairy farmer must carry each day,” said Dr. Pearse Lyons, president and founder of Alltech. “Yet even in this demanding line of work, we continue to see dairy farmers who go the extra mile and get the job done to put milk on our table.”
As general manager at Nestlé for more than 12 years, Erhard contributed to the rapid development of the China dairy industry. Erhard brought world-class facilities and the latest technology to Chinese farmers through the Dairy Farming Institute in Northeast China, one of the company’s biggest dairy investments. The Institute, located in Shuangcheng in Heilongjiang Province, is part of Nestlé’s long-running efforts to share its technical know-how and improve dairy farming around the world. It will help modernise Chinese dairy farming practices to enable farmers to meet the country’s fast-growing milk demand in a sustainable manner in the years ahead. Selected as a major partner in the project, Alltech brings its highly successful feed evaluation laboratory to the world’s fastest growing dairy market, participating in numerous educational initiatives and assistance in establishing best practices in Chinese agribusiness. The Alltech In Vitro Fermentation Model (IFM), a diagnostic tool that simulates rumen fermentation and evaluates the nutritive value of total mixed rations (TMR), is featured in the Institute and is one of the ways that Alltech helps to support the continued growth and transformation of the Chinese dairy industry.