Dairy farming has been heavily damaged in Kumamoto prefecture continuously rocked by a powerful earthquake and aftershocks since April 14. In Nishihara-mura some farmers had a hard time rescuing their dairy cows from under the quake-collapsed barns.
Farmers are cooperating to save a cow from a quake-crashed barn. (Nishihara-mura, Kumamoto prefecture)
Dairy farmers could not milk their cows with milking machines in several days after the earthquake because of a power failure in their village. Their cows have got infected with mastitis one after the other. And farmers are now forced to dispose fresh milk even though they manage to resume milking their cows.
“I could not milk my cows three days. Around eighty percent of cows have been infected with mastitis. Under such conditions, I cannot yet have fresh milk shipped to the milk plant. Now I do not know what to do,” a dairy farmer, feeding 27 cows and 21 calves in Nishihara village, said.