Dairy Herd Services is the business of Fiona Black, a Jamaican and graduate of the University of Florida, with a BS in Agriculture, majoring in Dairy Science, 1985. Having worked in farm management at Cherry Garden Farm, St. Catherine and Serge Island Farms, St. Thomas for 10 years Fiona Black has the training, experience and contacts to offer a range of services to dairy farmers. Dairy Herd Services started out offering computerised herd recording (using DairyTrak and then DairyComp305 from Valley Agricultural Software) and grew to include consulting (Paradise Park and Orange Hall Estates), bovine semen (Select Sires Inc. Jamaica distributor) and farm supplies. Since it started in 1996, Dairy Herd Services has earned a reputation of trust and flexibility in responding to the dairy sector needs. Dairy Herd Services wrote a newsletter for the Dairy Committee, Jamaica Livestock Association (1995-1998), and offered farmer representation at the Dairy Development Committee, Ministry of Agriculture and Milk & Milk Products Committee, Jamaica Bureau of Standards (1997-1998). Dairy Herd Services conducted research work on the damage done by subsidies in developed countries on behalf of the Jamaican milk producers for Jamaica Dairy Farmers Federation (JDFF)*, NOVIB (Holland), CAFOD (UK), Oxfam (UK), Germanwatch, Eurostep (EU). See the JDFF’s Submission to UK Parliament, 2003 and Eurostep’s New ACP-EU Trade Arrangements: New Barriers to Eradicating Poverty?, 2004 Training has been offered routinely in cattle Artificial Insemination (A.I.) for farmers, workers and veterinarians. Select Sires Inc. has sent instructors from the USA and Windalco (formerly Alcan) has provided the venue and practice cows. Pregnancy diagnosis training was also offered in 2005.
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