WSDA Blog

When Washington State University students Elizabeth Worley and Laurin Ogg signed up for their summer project, they didn’t expect to spend the season crossing the state — from Spokane to Sunnyside, up to Whatcom Valley — visiting dairy after dairy, binder in hand. But for both, the experience became an eye-opening step in their path toward veterinary medicine and animal science.

The two were part of a four-year Secure Milk Supply (SMS) grant program,  collaboration between WSDA,WSU and Darigold, designed to help dairy producers prepare for contagious diseases and potential Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreaks by designing customized enhanced biosecurity plans . Though the United States hasn’t seen a case of FMD in decades, preparedness is essential for emerging diseases like H5N1 — and the binders Worley and Ogg helped create could one day make the difference between chaos and control.

This work builds on the 2022–present Secure Food Supply (SFS) grant with WSU, which introduced a student-led, processor-organized approach to developing Secure Milk Supply plans. The model, first launched in Washington, has since gained national attention as other states adopt the framework to strengthen their own dairy preparedness efforts.

“Each farm got its own individualized plan,” said Worley, a third-year veterinary student. “Even if they had multiple farms under the same name, we made sure each location had its own binder — its own map, routes, and checklist. It’s their plan to pull off the shelf if FMD ever hits.”

Those plans weren’t just paperwork. Each was the result of hands-on, farm-by-farm visits — over 40 dairies in total. Working under the guidance of WSDA and with the Secure Food Supply resources from the Center for Food Safety and Public Health the pair met with producers, walked the grounds, mapped out routes for rendering trucks and feed deliveries, and identified weak spots in biosecurity.

“We’d go in with a checklist and a binder — about 11 pages total — and one of us would ask questions while the other built a map of the facility,” Ogg explained. “We’d talk with herd managers or whoever knew the daily operations best. And sometimes, we’d spot things they hadn’t thought about, like the rendering truck driving right by calf hutches. Those calves are the most vulnerable animals on the farm.”

Ogg recalled telling one producer, “Everything on that rendering truck died for a reason — you don’t know what’s coming onto your facility.”

That kind of conversation, she said, often led to important changes and innovative ideas from the producer.
“We approached every visit with the mindset of, ‘What can you teach us?’ not ‘Here’s what we’re here to tell you,’” Worley said. “That built trust. And once they realized we were students, they opened up more — we got full farm tours, saw how proud they were of their places.”
Both students said they learned as much as they taught.


“I’d learned about biosecurity before, but this made it real. Now, everywhere I go, I think, ‘That could be better,’ or, ‘That’s a risk point.’ You can’t learn that in a textbook — you have to be out there, on the farms, seeing it for yourself,” Ogg said.

Worley agreed. “I don’t come from a dairy background, so getting to travel across the state, visit farms big and small, and see how different dairies operate was incredible. Every producer has a different way of doing things — and they’re all succeeding in their own ways.”

The SMS plans, while originally designed for Foot and Mouth Disease, highlight a much broader reality: devastating animal diseases are not hypothetical.

“Bird flu, for example, is something we’re seeing in real time,” Worley said. “It’s not the same disease, but it’s proof that a single detection can have a huge impact — not just on a farm, but across an entire industry. FMD would be even worse. That’s why these plans matter so much.”

Ogg added, “It really drives home how quickly things can change. You realize how important it is to have systems in place before something happens — because once it does, it’s too late to plan.”
For Dr. Bruce Hutton, a WSDA veterinarian involved with the agency’s rural veterinary workforce efforts and leading the SFS program, watching students like Worley and Ogg step into these roles is both encouraging and essential.

“Programs like this do more than build biosecurity plans — they build people,” Hutton said. “We’re helping students understand how animal agriculture really works, the relationships that make it function, and the consequences when something goes wrong. That’s knowledge they’ll carry for the rest of their careers.”
Hutton noted that Washington’s rural communities depend on a shrinking pool of veterinarians — and that hands-on experiences like this one are critical to inspiring the next generation to stay in the field.

“We’re seeing fewer graduates going into large-animal practice,” he said. “But when students get to spend time on real farms, meeting producers, solving problems — they see why this work matters. It’s not just about medicine. It’s about keeping food systems stable, keeping communities alive.”
For Worley and Ogg, that message resonated.

“I know it’s hard to keep people in rural practice,” Ogg said, “but this is what I’ve always wanted to do. There’s no backup plan.”

Worley nodded. “I grew up in it. I understand the lifestyle. And I know how important it is to be there when your community needs you.”

After a summer of long drives and early mornings, both agree it was well spent time.
“It was a really fun summer,” said Ogg. “And now, when I see a binder on a shelf, I know it might actually make a difference one day.”

A producer’s perspective

For Ashley Kenny, who runs Darilane Farms in western Washington with her family, the students’ visit sparked important conversations about how their multigenerational dairy can protect itself for the future.
“It was good food for thought, especially as a generational farm,” Ashley said. “Some of the things my grandpa or mom knew just hadn’t been discussed with my brother and me yet. It helped us bridge those gaps and think about what biosecurity looks like for our family moving forward.”

She said the visit gave their operation a chance to step back and look at how disease prevention fits into daily routines — and where small changes could make a big difference.

“Biosecurity is huge,” she said. “Without it, you can’t have a dairy. You open yourself up to making life a lot harder than it used to be. Every dairy deals with hairy hoof wart disease now, but at one point, we didn’t — until a hoof trimmer brought it in. We learned the hard way. Now we’re always managing it. So being able to talk about preventing other diseases and putting standard operating procedures in place lets us not just exist in the future but thrive now — and for my kids someday, too.”

For Kenny, the SMS planning process reinforced the value of being prepared before an emergency happens.
“With a disease, you can’t wait,” she said. “You need to know who to call and what to do right away. Having that binder on the shelf — with numbers and next steps — gives you something solid to lean on when things get rough. Even just having those resources saved in your phone can make a huge difference. You never know what might happen, but having a plan means you’re ready for it.”

Steps to strengthen your dairy’s biosecurity

Learn how the Secure Milk Supply (SMS) plan can help your farm stay prepared for potential movement restrictions during a disease outbreak. Visit Milk Producers – Secure Milk Supply Plan for step-by-step biosecurity guidance, templates and planning tools.

Secure Milk Supply Plans: Creating Plans Through a Student-Led, Processor-Organized Model