“It is reasonable to ask, what is a fundamentally good idea to do with a farm, and dairy foods fit this idea.” Dr. Bill Wavrin was one of the keynote speakers at the 5th AABP Recent Graduate Conference in New Orleans, La., and delivered this message to our attendees.  Wavrin is a veterinarian and a dairy producer in Washington. In this episode, he discusses his thoughts on the future of the dairy industry with AABP President Dr. Pat Gorden and AABP Executive Director Dr. Fred Gingrich. Wavrin reminds us that although fluid milk consumption has declined, the commercial disappearance of dairy is increased due to consumption of non-fluid dairy products as well as increases in exports. He discusses that we used to export the milk from 1 out of 100 cows, and now we are exporting the milk from 1 out of 6 cows which has a tremendous impact on the price of dairy commodities. Wavrin states that the dairy industry does have an environmental impact, however, we are interested in decreasing this impact. Dairy utilizes the entire plant instead of only the fruit of the plant, and we should compare environmental impact to protein production. Dairy produces 16% of human protein intake and contributes only 1.3% of CO2 equivalents. We discuss the four sources of these greenhouse gases on the dairy which include fermentation, manure handling, energy inputs and feed. We close our conversation with a discussion of the importance of the clinical research projects that are supported by the AABP Foundation. As a veterinarian and producer,  Wavrin states his views on the importance of this research to continually improve the dairy industry to be competitive in the protein market. He is a generous supporter of the Foundation research projects and encourages other members to support the Foundation as well. If you would like to make a donation to the Foundation, please join him by visiting this page. View the 2021 Foundation Annual Report at this link.