Thousands of cattle converge in Madison for 57th World Dairy Expo

Oct 04, 2024

By Tim Peterson

For Emily Yeiser Stepp, the week of the World Dairy Expo in Madison ranks right up there with Christmas as one of her favorite times of the year.

Stepp has been coming to Wisconsin for the expo — the biggest trade show dedicated to dairy in the world — since 2005 as a cattle exhibitor and a judge.

This week, her family’s pair of Brown Swiss calves made the trip with them to compete at the expo. “PSwift” and “Patagonia” each earned top-10 finishes among the roughly 3,000 head of cattle from the United States and Canada assembled on the Alliant Center grounds.

Stepp also serves on the board of the expo and is a leader with the National Milk Producers Federation. The week is an opportunity to represent her organization and meet with stakeholders up and down the dairy supply chain.

She talked with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” about the event and some challenges facing the dairy industry, including threats like bird flu being found in cattle and the Farm Bill potentially expiring next week.

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Video: 2026 T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science - Dan Weary

T.K. Cheung Lecture in Animal Science: "Using science to assess and improve the welfare of dairy cattle"

Dan Weary is a Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dan did his BSc and MSc at McGill and Doctorate at Oxford before co-founding UBC’s Animal Welfare Program where he now co-directs this active research group. His research focuses on understanding the perspectives of animals and applying these insights to develop methods of assessing animal welfare and improving the lives of animals. His work has helped drive changes in practices (including the adoption of higher milk rations for calves and pain management for disbudding) and housing methods (including the adoption of social housing for pre-weaned calves). He also studies cow comfort and lameness, social interactions among cows, and interactions between cows, human handlers and technologies like automated millking systems that are increasingly used on farms. His presentation will outline key questions in cattle welfare, highlight recent UBC research addressing them, and showcase innovative methods for improving the lives of cattle and their caretakers.