South Dakota’s milk quality has room for improvement, according to South Dakota State University extension dairy specialist Alvaro Garcia.
“A quick look at milk quality changes between 2006 and 2010 comparing South Dakota with two of our neighboring states shows there’s still room for improvement in the area,” Garcia said.
Since 2006, somatic cell counts have been decreasing at a similar rate for Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, from approximately 300,000 in 2006 to 250,000 in 2010. The national average, based on the Dairy Herd Improvement Association in herds is around 300,000 cells. In South Dakota the number of tests above 400,000 has dropped over the years. He adds that back in 2006, South Dakota had 77.9 percent of the Dairy Herd Improvement Association test days above 400,000 somatic cell counts. By 2010, this figure had drop to 54.1 percent.
“Although highly encouraging this still means that over half of the test days of dairies in the state do not comply with the maximum somatic cell count limit accepted by the European Union,” he said.
The Agricultural Marketing Service of the USDA had a meeting earlier this month to discuss with industry stakeholders its proposed European Union certification program to meet the milk quality requirements imposed to shipments of dairy products imported by the 27-member countries of the EU. This program, which will officially begin on Jan. 1, 2012, is aimed at demonstrating the measures producers will have to take to be within the somatic cell and standard plate counts limits for raw milk set up by the EU.
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