Dairy Farmers takes a new approach for milk temperature requirements

Friday, December 28, 2012

by SUSAN MANN

Dairy Farmers of Ontario has started enforcing milk temperature requirements for farmers.

Earlier this month, bulk tank milk graders across Ontario started recording farmers’ milk temperatures based on their time temperature recorder during pick ups. If milk in the bulk tank is higher than 10 degrees Celsius, the milk grader has to reject the load after double-checking the temperature.

Dairy Farmers assistant communications director Bill Mitchell says only an “extremely small number” of farmers have their bulk tanks rejected because of temperatures. He didn’t have an exact number.

Mitchell says there’s already a regulation stipulating farmers’ milk has to be below 10 degrees Celsius. But what’s new now is the time temperature recorder is the official source of the milk temperature and Dairy Farmers is enforcing the regulation.

Ancaster-area dairy farmer Ben Loewith, chair of Progressive Dairy Operators, says he has no objection to Dairy Farmers’ enforcement of the regulations. “I think the regulations are catching up with our ability to measure these things. It’s only recently that we’ve had the ability to look at what temperature the milk has been over the past eight or 12 hours.”

Before, Dairy Farmers was only able to spot check temperatures during the milk pick up, he adds.

Individual farmers’ milk has to be below 10 degrees Celsius because processors have the ability to reject truckloads of milk higher than six degrees Celsius. “The truck has to be below six degrees Celsius when it gets to the plant,” Mitchell says.

Mitchell says elevated milk temperatures are more likely to occur when hot weather hits in the spring and summer when farmers’ cooling systems are taxed by the heat. Time temperature recorders and alarms have helped address the problem. “The TTR approach is more proactive in terms of keeping farmers aware of what’s going on with their systems,” he says.

To ensure milk is cool on pickup, Loewith recommends preventative maintenance on equipment and periodic checks on wash and cooling systems by the company contracted to monitor them.

Mitchell says farmers should ensure their cooling system is turned on at the correct time in the process and they need to “monitor its performance.”

The bulk tank milk grader uses a hand-held computer to transfer the information from the time temperature recorder. “The farmer has recorded, in real time, the constant temperature of milk during the whole 48-hour production process,” Mitchell says. It actually records the wash temperature to ensure the water is hot enough during the tank washing procedure and “then it records the cooling temperature on a time scale. So there’s a temperature for that bulk tank from before the first milking goes in.” BF