UW study finds large dairy farms produce higher quality milk more often than small operations

A UW-Madison study has found that milk produced on Wisconsin?s large farms, including the controversial industrial-size operations, is often of higher quality than milk from smaller farms. Steve Ingham, who led the study while working as a UW-Madison food science professor, speculated that the bigger farms may have more money to spend on equipment or may be better able to identify and remove cows with illnesses that affect milk production, such as mastitis. Ingham, who is now the food safety division administrator at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, added that all of the state?s farms, whether large or small, produce milk that easily meets federal food safety guidelines.