User:Theonewhodidit/Sandbox/DHIA

Dairy Herd Improvement Associations (DHIAs)

There are many DHIAs across the United States. They basically focus on the obvious, improving dairy farmers production of milk. They improve herds by providing frameworks, guidelines, training and other information to dairys. There is a National DHIA, and in the beginning each state that had any significant number of dairys had a specific DHIA for the state. Eventually some states combined associations for various reasons, and today the National DHIA lists these 19 members on the website (www.dhia.org). There are also others listed below the table; these may be members of the National DHIA but not listed on their website.

There are other DHIAs including Heart of America DHIA (www.hoadhia.com), Mid-South Dairy Records (http://www.mid-southdairy.com/), and Tulare DHIA.

Mission and Focus Areas

There are many objectives of the DHIA that go along with herd improvment including the upkeep of the Code of Ethics, Uniform Data Collection Procedures, and Quality Certification. http://www.dhia.org/objectives.asp

Specific Procedures

History

In the 1920s Extension specialists established a committee under the American Dairy Science Association (ADSA) that developed a uniform set of rules and guidelines for operation of cow testing associations (http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/64/6/1269.pdf).

See Also

External Links