National Dairy FARM Program Names 2026 Award Winners

The 2026 winners were announced at the Dairy Joint Annual Meeting in Kissimmee, Florida, attended by dairy co-operative executives, agricultural lenders and producer delegates from across the United States. The programme is administered by the National Milk Producers Federation with Dairy Management Inc.

Established in 2021, the annual awards recognise commercial dairy operations and field evaluators that demonstrate progress against the programme’s on-farm standards. The National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management programme covers animal care, antibiotic use, environmental management and workforce development.

Animal-welfare assessments are conducted under FARM Animal Care Version 5, which applies to participating farms through 2027. The criteria include herd-health procedures developed with licensed veterinarians, somatic-cell counts, pain management during disbudding, cases involving non-ambulatory cows and controls intended to prevent antimicrobial residues in milk.

Certified field evaluators score conditions including animal body condition, hock and knee health, and the cleanliness of facilities. Assessments cover free-stall barns, dry lots and pasture-based systems. The programme uses these measures to document farm performance in herd health and animal care.

The environmental categories examine nutrient management, energy use and efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Recognised farms may use precision-agriculture tools to match slurry and compost applications with crop and soil requirements. Other infrastructure cited by the programme includes solids separators, covered manure lagoons and anaerobic-digestion systems that capture methane for renewable natural-gas production.

Participating producers also track carbon emissions and resource use with standardised environmental-footprint calculators. The resulting information can be supplied to milk processors, cheese manufacturers and retailers seeking documented sustainability data, including figures relevant to Scope 3 emissions.

Dr Meggan Hain, the programme’s chief veterinary officer, said the awards recognised farmers and evaluators who turn continuous improvement into action and establish a standard for responsible care and stewardship. She congratulated the recipients and said the programme depended on their achievements and on the work of other dairy farmers.