Karen Nielsen: America’s Dairyland worldwide
Karen Nielsen, Director
Babcock Institute for International Dairy Research and Development
UW-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences
(608) 265-4169
knielsen@cals.wisc.edu
America’s Dairyland worldwide
Time – 3:03 minutes
0:19 – What is the Babcock Institute
0:42 – Wisconsin National Guard training
1:05 – World Dairy Expo opportunities
1:34 – Dairy topics people need
2:04 – Business contacts for Wisconsin
2:18 – International opportunity for local business
2:50 – For more information
2:55 – Lead out
Sevie Kenyon
Wisconsin diary land around the world: We’re visiting today with Karen Nielsen of the Babcock Institute, University of Wisconsin College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison Wisconsin and I am Sevie Kenyon. Karen, welcome to our microphone. Can you give us a definition of the Babcock Institute?
Karen Nielsen
Well the Babcock Institute was formed in 1991 to serve as a hub for international dairy activities in Wisconsin and especially at the University Wisconsin, Madison. We work really closely with Extension, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, and the Wisconsin Department of Commerce to develop programs and to promote Wisconsin as the center for dairy excellence around the world.
Sevie Kenyon
And Karen, what kind of projects are you working on right now?
Karen Nielsen
The one that I’m really excited about right now is we’ve been asked to organize a training program from July 25-29 at Arlington Research Station to train the Wisconsin Army National Guard in basic agriculture 101 so that they can go and do some training in Eastern Afghanistan.
Sevie Kenyon
What are some of your favorite projects?
Karen Nielsen
I really like the World Dairy Expo course every year. So we are doing the course this year in English with Spanish translation in one room, and then we’ve started having a translation in the other classroom into Mandarin Chinese. We’ve had so many people coming now from China to buy products and services during World Dairy Expo that we thought we should offer the course in Chinese too.
Sevie Kenyon
Karen, what kind of topics do you talk about in those World Dairy Expo courses?
Karen Nielsen
We usually do a calf care module because that is something we’ve seen around the world that is lacking. Often, maybe facility design for cow comfort issues. Also we do a milk quality testing that you can do on the farm so we have a lab that shows the participants a bunch of different techniques they can use of the farm for testing their milk for quality.
Sevie Kenyon
Karen can you give us an idea of what benefits have accrued to Wisconsin for this activity?
Karen Nielsen
So one of the main things we do is to hook companies up with a lot of these international visitors so that those visitors in the future can become customers.
Sevie Kenyon
Karen, do you have anything planned on the international stage in the near future?
Karen Nielsen
In August I am very excited that our annual Sino-US dairy center seminar will be in Ho Hat which is Inner Mongolia in China. And at our seminars leaders from all over China’s dairy industry come to our seminars and then we provide opportunities for companies to exhibit during the seminar. So this might be a great opportunity for some of our local companies to come and have an exhibit table.
Sevie Kenyon
Karen If people want more information, what should they do?
Karen Nielsen
Google the Babcock Institute and I think it’s one of the first things that will come up on your Google search.
Sevie Kenyon
We’ve been visiting with Karen Nielsen of the Babcock Institute, University of Wisconsin College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Madison Wisconsin and I am Sevie Kenyon.