World Dairy Diary coverage of World Dairy Expo is sponsored by:
The theme of this year’s World Dairy Expo is “Legendary” and with nearly 125 years of service to the dairy industry, it’s hard to beat Hoard’s Dairyman for legendary.
The legend began in 1885 with W.D. Hoard who published a weekly newspaper, according to managing editor Steve Larson. “He was from New York and he had seen dairy farming and home butter and cheese making there and he saw this as a potential source of income for Wisconsin farmers,” Steve says. “Wisconsin at that time was the leading wheat producing state with very little animal agriculture, so he began to advocate keeping dairy cattle as a way to make use of this land.”
Mr. Hoard began to talk about that in his weekly newspaper which over time became the Hoard’s Dairyman magazine, which has been a pioneer in the dairy industry. They own and operate a dairy farm that was purchased by Mr. Hoard in 1899 to serve as a model for the industry.
Hoard’s continues to be a pioneer in communicating to dairy producers as well, featuring a well-populated blog from World Dairy Expo this year, according to Gary Vorpahl, director of marketing. “We have an hourly blog that’s being updated as different events happen and different activities such as the cow judging and the student competitions become finalized, we’re reporting those on an instantaneous basis.”
Listen to or download an interview with Steve and Gary here: