Dairy farmers find more green in grass
Some New Zealand immigrants in Missouri are working to persuade American dairy farmers that changing the way they feed their cows could save money in the long run. Maureen McCollum reports.
Dairy farmer Kevin van der Poel checks cows on a milking carousel. (Chris Dunn)
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Cows on Kevin van der Poel's dairy farm in Southwest Missouri.
TEXT OF STORY
BOB MOON: Milk prices are sure easier to swallow these days. Lowest since 1979. Good news for milk drinkers. Not so, if you're a farmer struggling to stay in business. Last week, the Senate approved a $350-million rescue plan. But dairy producers are still scrambling to save money and Missouri farmers are paying close attention to how New Zealand immigrants feed their cows. From KBIA, Maureen McCollum reports.
MAUREEN MCCOLLUM: Kevin Van der Poel really wanted to expand his dairy business a few years ago. The problem for this New Zealander was that farmland in his country is super expensive. So, he went on a global quest for land. He looked in Australia and Chile. But, van der Poel eventually settled on this farm in southwest Missouri. Land here costs about $2000 an acre, versus $20,000 back in New Zealand.
Kevin Van der Poel: We wanted to find somewhere that grew grass, and we found southwest Missouri was a good place to go.
Van der Poel could now grow exactly the type of grass he needed. Grass that cows eat while roaming open fields. This concept is revolutionary in the U.S. dairy industry. Milk cows here are usually kept in stalls most of the day and fed corn and grains. That setup allows each cow to produce more milk. But, it costs three times as much to feed cows this way.
Here's why that matters. With the price of milk at its lowest in years, Missouri farmers who keep cows in stalls are losing money. Those with cows grazing in fields are breaking even.
.Van der Poel: New Zealand has been very successful with milking cows from pasture, and we wanted to see if we could use some of those skills learned in New Zealand in America.
Today, there are 20 New Zealanders on four Missouri farms. And they're teaming up with the University of Missouri to show struggling local farmers they do have options.
STACEY HAMILTON: Dairymen are losing, they're bleeding everywhere.
Stacey Hamilton is a dairy specialist with University of Missouri Extension. He lobbied hard for the New Zealanders to come. Hamilton doesn't think it's necessarily bad to keep cows in stalls. But his research does show farmers can benefit economically by moving their cows to the pasture. For one, it cuts down on vet bills, because conditions are generally more sanitary.
HAMILTON: In a lot of free-stall operations, the cows get done eating, they get a drink, they walk 10 feet, and lay down in stall and they may be putting their udder in a manure pile.
Hamilton says grazing techniques can also help save farmers a lot of time. Less feeding, less milking. And that's important because many kids aren't interested in the long hours of a dairy farmer.
HAMILTON: So they may be milking 8-12 hours a day. That's why their kids didn't want to come back, because they never saw their mom and dad. Mom and dad was in the shed the whole time.
Mike Meier understands that feeling. None of his three sons want to take over his dairy farm. Meier himself almost gave up on the business completely. That is until Hamilton and a New Zealand worker from Van der Poel's farm introduced Meier to the grazing method. The transition allowed him to finally take a hunting vacation last winter.
MIKE MEIER: I was in South Dakota pheasant hunting.
Meier didn't need to purchase extra land for grazing. He took the area where he used to grow corn and alfalfa for the cows, and started growing grass on it instead. The leftover grass is turned into hay for the cows to eat in the winter.
MEIER: When I start implementing what those guys were showing me, it's really starting to work now.
Meier wants to purchase even more cows next year.
Back at Kevin Van der Poel's farm, he watches hundreds of cows line up, waiting patiently for workers to attach milking machines to their udders.
Van der Poel says here's how he measures success. Some Missouri locals were skeptical when he first arrived with his grazing technique. At first, Van der Poel noticed that conversations at the local cafe would come to a dead stop when he walked through the door. Now, everyone wants to buy him a cup of coffee.
From Harwood, Mo., I'm Maureen McCollum for Marketplace.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
10/16/2009
Why is pastured dairy more profitable today?
Grazing dairy farmers today manage pastures much more intensely than in the past. We divide large pasture areas up into small "paddocks" that allow us to provide milking cows with fresh grass after each milking, twice a day.
This kind of management increases pasture productivity and diversity. It also improves soil quality, protects water quality and improves wildlife habitat.
This type of "management intensive" pasturing will become comparatively more profitable in the future as energy costs rise, because this system saves a lot of fossil-fuel energy.
Compare this: in a confinement dairy, the forage (grasses and legumes) have to be mechanically harvested in a field, hauled to the milking facility, put into storage, fed to the cows daily, and then the manure has to be collected, hauled back to the field and spread.
In a well designed and managed grass-based dairy, one only has to open the gate to the next paddock for the cows and close the gate behind them. The cows harvest their own forage and spread their manure at the same time in an ecologically sound manner. And, the cows enjoy their "work" and are healthier and live longer because they are in their natural environment, eating their natural diet.
10/16/2009
What exactly is it that is making pastured cows profitable again? What was it that made it un-profitible to begin with? Is it just the price of oil impacting the price of growing and transporting grain? Scale? What?
From Potomac, MD, 10/16/2009
Thank you, Francis. You have answered my question. I see that my father could have relied on pasture much more.
10/15/2009
Some have asked what how grass-based dairies work in northern climates.
I am in Iowa and graze my dairy cows from the first week of April until the first week of December (normally). My brother in Minnesota grazes his cows nearly as long.
Grass can be "stockpiled" in the pasture if left ungrazed from August until October, when the growing season ends. Then the stockpiled grass can be grazed until snow covers it.
During the winter months, cows in grazing dairies are often "outwintered" in pastures where they are fed hay, and where they have room to spread out and lie to rest in the dormant grass. When it snows, bedding can be spread on the snow for the cows to lie on.
When it is very cold, and especially when cold and windy, the cows need to be sheltered from the wind, either in a pasture area with a windbreak, or in temporary housing.
From Framingham, MA, 10/15/2009
Nice to see that some American dairy farmers are coming around to the wisdom of not feeding cows food their stomachs weren't meant to digest.
From Rewey, WI, 10/15/2009
Thank you for the enlightenment from across the big waters! Can it be that American farmers are living in the dark ages and have never heard nor practiced rotational grazing? This is the second of two recent poorly researched agriculture related stories I have heard on public radio. Portions of this report and the one on American beef raising methods (quoted from a French farmer of all experts) are true for some segments of the industry, the inference that these are common and standard practices is purposely deceptive. This is absolutely not serving to educate an American populace already prejudiced by biased anti-agriculture groups.Too bad the commentaries on this page that help set the story straight are not as well aired.
From Salt Lake City, UT, 10/15/2009
The way this article presents eating grass in a field as revolutionary makes it sound like "The Onion" or an April Fools story.
Giving some historical and regulatory context about how farmers forgot the natural way to raise stock would be more useful than a simple one shot novelty piece.
From Potomac, MD, 10/15/2009
This story left me puzzled, and perhaps someone can explain. What does grass-fed mean in the wintertime? I grew up on a Minnesota dairy farm, and the climate permitted our cows to graze on pasture only 4 months per year. The other 8 months, the cows were in confinement, eating hay, corn silage, and grain. What other choice did we have?
From Fairfield, IA, 10/15/2009
Grazing dairy farms are common in the Midwest. Nearly a quarter of Wisonsin dairy farms graze their cows. Studies at the University of Wisconsin have shown that grazing dairies are as profitable, or more profitable, than confinement dairies. As oil prices rise, the economics of grazing dairy cows will become even more favorable compared to confinement.
From NH, 10/15/2009
I truly hope grass feeding comes back and the dairy products become easily available. Our digestive bacteria get along so much better with the grass fed cattle bacteria. I believe that many of todays medical problems have evolved as a result of changing to grain fed animals.
From DC, 10/15/2009
The fact that the reporter and even the farmers acted like grazing was a revolutionary concept from some far away land illustrates the sad, sad state of the American food industry. On the bright side, I guess it is good that people are realizing that the "old methods" do not necessarily conflict with profit making.
From Bennington, VT, 10/15/2009
Flexibility in feeding regimens will provide the optimal cost solution. Negotiated quantity discounts for feed, seed, fuel and electricity will minimize the probability that using only one approach causes problems. An alternative for farmers is to plan on being able to accurately predict drought, high fuel prices, stock market cycles and real estate values.
From Moscow, ID, 10/15/2009
One thing that I did not understand from your report: you mentioned the long hours traditionally spent in the milking shed and that this was different with the New Zealand methods. How so? I have heard that some dairies in New Zealand only milk once a day instead of the US standard, which is twice a day milking and the sometimes three times a day milking used at some huge dairies to squeeze every last drop of production out of a cow. Three times a day milking does not triple your milk yields but does triple your time and labor costs spent in the milking parlor and I suspect puts significant stresses on the cows. So milking frequency does affect the economic and production picture here. How frequently are these New Zealand modeled dairies milking? I suspect that another economic benefit to the grass raised model is that with reduced lameness and mastitis, the cows stay in the milking string longer. Sadly, I don't see this model working in the colder places in our country where it is below freezing and deep snow covering the grass for months of the year. In those areas some of the pastures would have to be used to produce hay to feed in the winter. But even feeding grass half the year would be a significant improvement. It is nice to see the farmers willing go out on a limb and try something different.
From OR, 10/14/2009
What a concept! Ever so clever! Imagine, cows eating grass. What will they think of next?
From Elkton, MD, 10/14/2009
This is encouraging, that people are going back to what used to work. Get the government OUT of subsidies of ALL types, farm and otherwise, and let the market decide. Subsidies caused the factory farm in the first place, by making it profitable. We raised high quality beef this way for years, grazing with a little grain supplement.
From IN, 10/14/2009
Good grief, what is the world coming to? Out with assembly-line cattle barns. Gee wizz, farming WITH the land, like our grandparents used to do! (Or like organic farmers do all over the world). What a novel idea!
BUT We cannot have that, Monsanto may go out of business! Elanco could loose its market. Milk and beef could be natural again. Maybe Mr and Ms America could even slim down to a normal size.
From PA, 10/14/2009
I enjoyed this story about grassfed dairy cows, but the report made it sound like it is a new idea. It needed to be presented as a resurgence rather than a ground breaking new concept otherwise it risks sounding poorly researched.
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