COLUMNS
Dairy Herd Management
A Trip of a Lifetime

by Colleen Leonard
Better herds through international relations

In October of 2007, 13 dairy farm families from Vermont took a trip of a lifetime to visit dairy farms and the agriculture industry in the Netherlands. Sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s, the farm families applied for and were selected based on participation in the Dairy Stewardship Alliance (DSA) program. The DSA program—designed by Ben & Jerry’s, UVM Extension and the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, St. Albans Coop Creamery and Vermont dairy producers—envisions being a valuable part of every Vermont dairy farm’s business plan, and hopes to increase sustainability in our dairy farm communities. The DSA strives to provide farmers the tools to understand, document and implement sustainable dairy farming practices. Information obtained from farmers, through a self-assessment toolkit, will be collected and analyzed in order to develop targeted programs specific to the needs of the farming community. The kit is designed to provide the Vermont dairy farmer with information on how his or her current practices compare economically, socially and environmentally to best management practices. The intent is to make the kit accessible to the entire Vermont agricultural community.

Dairy farmers are paid by the Dutch Government to maintain water canals that run through their properties. The canals also serve as livestock fences.

The Vermont farmers and DSA advisory team members, for a total of 36 enthusiastic individuals, traveled to the Netherlands, where we were hosted by farmers active in the Caring Dairy program (sister program to DSA). Most of these host farms came to Vermont in October of 2006 to learn about dairy farming in Vermont and the DSA program. The overall goal of the farmer exchange was to learn about sustainable dairy farming practices from each other, expand, build upon and improve the DSA and Caring Dairy programs.

So, what was it like in the Netherlands? I was one of the fortunate DSA board members who got to travel with the group. With a population of nearly 7 million people in Amsterdam, one organic farmer commented, “we are not seen as an agricultural area, but rather one big garden that everybody is watching. The consumers are allowing us to farm.” To elaborate, there are 470 people per hectare in Holland compared to less than 25 per hectare in Vermont. One hectare equals 2.471 acres.

The Netherlands is 20 meters (or 65.61 feet) below sea level. Many farms have water canals through their fields and pastures. Farmers are paid by the Dutch government to maintain and clean out the canals. The canals are used as fences for cattle; however, at least four times a week, a cow falls in and needs to be pulled out by a tractor. As we witnessed at one farm, this is quite the process! The canals are about 2 feet deep. One farmer we visited was turning some of his land into a “nature ecological zone.” He will get 15,000 Euros (or about $22,200 U.S.) per hectare from the Dutch government. Eighty percent will be in cash for the “nature areas.” The farmer plans in the next five years to create a meadow bird area by establishing and maintaining their natural flyway habitat (the birds fly to Africa in the winter). This includes mowing later in the season, mowing around nesting areas, and putting out protectors during the grazing season. The farm will get 400 Euros ($592 U.S.) per hectare for the bird areas.

The price of milk being paid to farmers in Europe right now is the highest it has been in nine years. Usual prices are around 30 cents a kilogram; right now, they are at 45 cents a kilogram. One kilogram equals 2.2 pounds (45 kilogram = 100 pounds). Milk production in Holland is generally lower than in the U.S., ranging between 6,000 and 8,500 liters (13,000 to 19,000 pounds). The soils are sandy, and the forages are of lower quality. They tend to feed less grain. Holland has 22,000 dairy farms, 300 of which are organic. The average farm size is about 60 cows. Three percent of the dairy products are consumed in Holland. One-third is exported to England and Germany. The organic farmer gets 6 to 7 cents extra per kilogram of milk. On a side note, heifers are worth about 1,400 Euros ($2072 U.S.). Contract heifer growers charge about 1.5 Euros ($2.22 U.S.) per day.

Holland is under the European Union Quota System, which began in 1983 when there was a dairy surplus. Holland had the highest price for quota in the world, which made it difficult to get into farming or expand. For the first five years of the quota, farmers had to decrease production and cut herds back by 20 percent. The quota system is scheduled to be dissolved in five years, when there is expected to be a milk shortage in Europe. They will then go to a free market system.

The lack of farm labor is a huge issue in the Netherlands as well as all over Europe. The young Dutch farm boys go to work in other countries where the dairy industry is booming, such as in Germany and Hungary. This leaves home farms in need of labor. Robot milkers address some of the labor shortage needs. At the same time, the labor is paid well, an average of 25 to 30 Euros ($37 - $44U.S.) per hour for a general farm worker.

Animal Welfare is extremely important. It is European law that baby calves can’t be shipped under 10 days of age. By 2010, cows will be required to have at least 6 square meters of space (or 64.58 square feet). Robot milkers are popular and go hand in hand with cow and worker comfort. Cows seem to love being milked and don’t kick off the machines. The European government offers subsidies on robot milkers, because it decreases worker health issues relating to bending and milking. A robot milker goes for about 105,000 Euros ($155,400 U.S) and the government offers a subsidy of 10,000 Euros ($14,800 U.S.) for the human health benefit. The maintenance on robots is seldom but expensive. Monthly routine checks are done, but they do break down about every six weeks. There are smaller problems every few weeks that can usually be taken care of by the farmer. The robots clean themselves every eight hours. Automatic brushes clean off the teats before attaching the unit. The legal limit in the Netherlands for somatic cell count is 400,000 cells per liter. We saw many free-stall operations with large rolling automatic brushes for cows to stand under scratching themselves for enjoyment, cleanliness and comfort.

Windmills and grazing cattle capture the heart and soul of Holland.

We visited a university farm with 27 windmills that run the entire university; 14 of the windmills run the farm alone. The windmills can be paid off within 10 years through government subsidies. The farm is a “Cow Hotel” and is open at all times for the public to visit. The university is working on a “walking” robot that will go out into the pastures with the cows.

In the Netherlands, the Caring Dairy program has been adopted by CONO cheese makers, which is a co-op made up of 550 dairy farmers. We toured the CONO cheese plant, which makes the brand name “Beemster” cheese that is sold in the United States. They have stringent quality standards, including a 250,000 SCC legal limit, but they will pay 2 Euros ($2.96 U.S.) per 100 kilograms in quality premiums.

The Vermont DSA farmers returned home from Holland with new enthusiasm and ideas to implement on their farms. Future articles will update you on the DSA program and changes some of our farmers are making to improve the “sustainability” and “vitality” of their farms. If you are interested in participating in, or learning more about, the DSA program, you can visit the Ben & Jerry’s Web site: www.benjerry.com/our_company/our_values/position_papers/sustainable_ag/

Colleen Leonard is a dairy herd management specialist for UVM Extension based in the Newport, Vt., office.