Albion dairy farmer, 2 sons take 2nd in national ag innovation competition

Provided photo: Jody Neal and his sons Zachary, left, and Jayden, formed Udder Ways LLC.

An Albion dairy farmer and his two sons finished second today in an agricultural innovation challenge at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jody Neal and sons Jayden and Zachary have formed Udder Ways LLC, a startup business with their new system to sanitize and prepare udders for milking.

The Neals won a $20,000 prize for second place. In September, American farm Bureau announced Udder Ways was one of 10 finalists for the ag innovation competition. On Saturday, they made it to the final four.

Jody Neal is a partner a Poverty Hill Farms in Albion, a dairy farm on East County House Road. His sons were active in the Orleans County 4-H Robotics program, where they learned programming and tech skills as part of a team that competed in the Rochester region.

The Neals worked on their udder cleaning system the past eight years. The device is used just before a cow is milked. Their invention uses a unique, brushless technology to gently stimulate cows and ensure clean and dry teats, the family states on their website.

“With our patented vortex-style application, you can achieve consistent stimulation and promote milk letdown effortlessly,” they said.

The $50,000 first prize went to Barn Owl Precision Agriculture from Colorado which utilizes small robots (micro-tractors) for planting crops, precision weeding and collecting soil samples.