World Dairy Expo Announces 2026 Virtual Farm Tours
World Dairy Expo will hold its 2026 Virtual Farm Tours each day at 9:30 a.m. from September 30 through October 2. The in-person sessions will take place in Mendota Room 1 at the Exhibition Hall of the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wisconsin. ExpoTV will carry simultaneous digital broadcasts.
Each event will combine a filmed presentation from the featured farm with a discussion and question-and-answer session involving owners and operational managers. The 25th-anniversary programme will examine herd management, breeding, automation and resource use across three commercial dairy businesses.
The opening tour, on September 30, will focus on Coldstream Farms in Deming, Washington, with sponsorship from Semex. The Whatcom County operation, established in 1978, is run by second-generation partners Galen and Laura Smith, Lynne Wheeler and Brad Smith. It milks about 2,000 cows on 1,600 acres and reports average production of 115 pounds of energy-corrected milk per cow, with butterfat of 4.8% and protein of 3.5%.
Coldstream Farms uses embryo transfer and sexed genetics alongside several resource-recovery practices. Its systems include a BioLynk flush system and bedding made from recycled manure solids. Feed rations also incorporate byproducts from regional food businesses, including bakery waste, potatoes and whey.
On October 1, the programme will move to Double Eagle Dairy in Middleton, Michigan. Sponsored by Afimilk, the farm is owned and managed by John and Karen Weller. The session will cover the family’s preparations to bring a fourth generation into management, as well as its use of precision herd-management tools, automated monitoring and cow-comfort procedures.
The final tour, on October 2, will feature Rancho Pepper Dairy in Dublin, Texas, under sponsorship from DeLaval. The 4,400-acre pasture-based business began converting to certified organic production in 2006. In 2022, it commissioned what the organisers describe as North America’s first DeLaval VMS batch-milking facility, equipped with 22 V300 robotic units arranged in a double-11 parallel configuration.
Rancho Pepper Dairy manages a 2,000-cow herd under Dr Juan Velez, Craig Edwards and Nelson Rodriguez. The operation combines rotational grazing with a solar installation that supplies 70% of the robotic parlour’s electricity. Its breeding programme uses slick-gene Holsteins and genomic Jersey donors.
