Deon Schlechter

WINDHOEK – Despite their escalating woes, dairy producers were last week awarded for excellent milk production during another drought year at the AGM of the Dairy Producers’ Association (DPA), held near Mariental.

At a gala dinner, awards were given to dairy producers for excellent quality milk. The events took place on farm Kachas of the DPA chairman, Kokkie Adriaanse. 

Interesting speakers with practical demonstrations added spice to the events.  The speakers were Dr Tom Tolmay (overall health of a dairy herd) and Liza-Marie Taljaard of MICCA (rearing calves on Blossom surrogate milk).

The awards went to:
Dairy Producer of the Year (Extensive) - Christo Lottering. Dirk van Wyk was in second place and Hennie van Niekerk in third place.

Dairy Producer of the Year (Intensive) - Christo Strydom. Johan Aggenbach was in second place and Peter Menne in third place.

Producer with the lowest milk bacterial count was Dirk van Wyk.
!Aimab Superfarm was the producer with the most accurate milking forecasting figures.
Producer with the best quality milk delivered (Japie Engelbrecht floating trophy) was Dirk van Wyk.
The sponsors who made the prizes as well as the dinner and members meeting possible were Feedmaster, Namibia Dairies, Bank Windhoek (Mariental), Kaap Agri (Mariental), Polyoak Packaging and DeLaval.