COVID-19 Management Resources

Dairy Responding to COVID-19

A Limited Podcast Series​

Hosted by Rob Lynch, DVM, Dairy Herd Health and Management Specialist, PRO-DAIRY, and Kathy Barrett, Dairy Education, PRO-DAIRY, with interviews of key dairy industry professionals.

  • EPISODE 1 includes an interview with: Mark Stevenson, Vice President, Milk Division, Cayuga Marketing.
  • EPISODE 2 includes interviews with: Scott Lyndaker, General Manager, Mercer Milling Company and David Horn, DVM, Nutrition Consultant, Poulin Grain.
  • EPISODE 3 includes interviews with: Meghan Hauser, Dairy Farm Co-Owner, Table Rock Farms, and Corwin Holtz, Owner, Holtz Nelson Dairy Consultants.
  • EPISODE 4 includes interviews with: Rick Watters, Regional Director of Quality Milk Production Services, Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, and Dr. Allen Fournier, DVM Large Animal Veterinarian, Co-Owner of Maplewood Veterinary Associates, P. C.
  • EPISODE 5 includes interviews with: Bob Church, General Manager of Finger Lakes Dairy Services, tells us about how his business is keeping milking equipment up and running. Steve Zehr, Premier Select Sires, gives us insight on how he and his technicians are providing reproductive services during COVID-19. Charles Biche, Biche Hoof Care, continues to care for his customers cows while keeping cows and people safe.
  • EPISODE 6 includes interviews with: Andrew M. Novaković, PhD, E.V. Baker Professor of Agricultural Economics Emeritus, and Christopher Wolf, PhD, Professor, Applied Economics and Policy, both from the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, SC Johnson College of Business, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University. They discuss the current challenges in the milk supply chain, the declining milk price forecast and policy issues.
  • EPISODE 7 features: Joe Lawrence, Forage Management Specialist, Cornell University PRO-DAIRY Program. He discusses field crop management strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • EPISODE 8 features: Dr. Tom Overton, Faculty Cornell University, Director PRO-DAIRY. He describes how to safely reduce milk your cow's milk production without sacrificing future milk production. He also shares considerations for feeding milk to cows.

Managing During COVID-19 Publication Series

Reliable Resources for Spanish & English-Speaking Farmworkers about COVID-19

By Libby Eiholzer, CCE Northwest NY Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops Team, and Richard Stup, Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development

We’ve prepared a new resource to help Spanish- and English-speaking farm employees access credible, multi-lingual information about COVID-19 that they can use right away. The document appears in English and Spanish and the content is the same, we will keep both documents up to date during the present COVID-19 crisis.

Thanks to Lisa Ford of Cayuga Marketing and Anna Meyerhoff of NYCAMH for their input on this new resource.

COVID-19 Planning Related Webinars

Click the webinar title to access the recorded presentation.

Disruption to Key Personnel on the Farm: Developing Contingency Plans

Presenters: Richard Stup, PhD, Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development, and Jason Karszes, Cornell CALS PRO-DAIRY

On many farms, multiple people might be able to do, or train others on, many day-to-day tasks, but fewer can take care of management tasks that occur daily, weekly, or monthly. This webinar focuses on developing plans to backup people who perform key management tasks, from middle to senior management roles, if they are unable to work.

COVID-19 and Your Dairy Webinar

Presenter: Richard Stup, PhD, Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development, and Rob Lynch, DVM, Cornell CALS PRO-DAIRY
Webinar Presentation Slides

This webinar discusses steps that dairy managers should consider to protect their workforce, their business and their markets. Topics include: why prevention of the coronavirus/COVID-19 is important, steps that employers should take to protect employees, animal health considerations, what to do if service providers are not available, disaster contingency plans, cross-training of employees who can fill other roles, business resources for employers, and pending federal and state legislation related to coronavirus and employees.

Need Information?

View the following Cornell CALS and CCE web pages. (Pages are updated regularly.)

Other COVID-19 Specific Webpages:

New Releases and Alerts