I Hope We All Make It

Last week, while reading my email, I found my latest copy of the Minnesota Milk Producers (MMPA) Newsletter.  MMPA is a group I proudly joined a couple years ago because of their dedication to Minnesota Dairy farmers, specifically in relation to legislation happening in our state that affects the farmers' way of life.  As I was reading this newsletter, I was immediately drawn to an letter in response to Land Stewardship Project (LSP).  A few weeks previous LSP circulated a letter to rural Minnesota citizens, calling them to action against a proposed "factory farm" in Stevens County Minnesota.  I remembered that I had also received that letter and went to the mail pile.  I had actually filed it with all of my junk mail, because while I appreciate the principles that LSP work for I don't appreciate their approach (scare tactics). 
When I opened the envelope and read the contents I was torn between being sick and being angry.  Sick, because I hate the fact that farmers and rural leaders are pitting themselves against other farmers, and angry for the same reasons.  There were examples of facts that were most certainly being exaggerated in addition to emotionally heavy words like "corporate agriculture", "factory farms", "toxic pollution", "environmental nightmare" and many others.  There were also false claims of health and environmental dangers.
If you want to read the scare tactics, you can go to the LSP web site, and if you want to read MMPA's response please see this link.  I think MMPA has a great response to LSP.  As dairy farmers, we're all in this together. We need to focus on educating the public on farming practices from all styles of farming rather than scaring them into believing that a large farm will be the death of their rural economies and environments.
I know first hand the struggles even a small dairy has with environmental regulations.  In our county we were required to notify all land owners within a one mile radius of our farm of any additions to our animal units or manure storage.  We were also required to submit manure management plans each year and expected surprise annual inspections from our county officer.  I'm not going to lie, these regulations were a pain in our butt, however I am glad that we have them in place to keep all farmers honest in their practices....big or small.  I think the key factor all consumers, rural leaders and farmers forget is that we're all in this together.  We share the same resources, we share water, air and soil.  We want and need to farm in a way that is sustainable, but because we share our environment, what we do to our environment will also affect us.  If a large or small dairy pollutes their water, they are also polluting water for their cows, employees and families.  It's not in anyone's best interest to destroy our environment. 
Moreover, the accusation that large dairies will put small dairies out of business is absurd. Having a larger dairy will help to keep local business running, whether that's feed companies, agronomy companies, lumber yards, equipment dealers, banks, hardware stores, trucking companies, manufacturing/processing plants, and so many more.  $1.00 of milk sold from any sized dairy will generate about $3.00 worth of local economic activity!  Smaller dairies also help local communities!  We need farms of all sizes and styles to have a thriving industry.  Why to small dairies sell out?  They can't afford to upgrade, there isn't another generation to take over the farm, the business plan didn't work, there are many reasons, but to point fingers at large dairies is ridiculous.  We need all sizes, we need each other, and at the end of the day, farming is hard enough the way it is.....I hope we all make it! 

Moving forward on our lagoon...

Success!  Today we received our final approval from the county board of commissioners for our manure lagoon!  Now all we need to do is secure financing and we can call the contractors to move forward with this project.  It's been another long and busy road to reach this point.  The process started over 3 months ago, when we finalized the design of our lagoon.  Our lagoon will store enough manure, waste water, run off water, and rain water for our 240 milking cows, a future additional 160 more cows, and 50 dry cows, plus an additional 8% extra....so basically, we're prepared for anything!  This lagoon design had to be approved by an engineer, which we hired, and then sent to the county feedlot inspector for approval.  After a number of changes to meet specs for the engineer and the laws of our county, we finally had plan.  Then we had to revise our manure management for the additional "future" storage.  That manure management plan had to be presented to the commissioners as well as the plans for the lagoon.  We had a hearing last week with our county board, and then today we had final approval for the plans.  Thankfully, we were not opposed by any neighbors, but we've been talking to all of them about this project for over a year.  Only one commissioner had a handful of questions for Jon, so basically pain-free. 
Now we are excited to move forward, in hopes that this winter we can enjoy the convenience of not having to haul manure, and the ability to only have to apply manure to our fields in the fall, when we can maximize those nutrients as a natural fertilizer!

Feedlot Inspection Time

Just like when we get inspected by the milk inspector, it is time for us to have our feedlot inspection.  You may ask, "What is a feedlot inspection?" Well...it's a good thing!  Since we operate a farm that has over 300 Animal Units, we are required by county and state laws to have an inspection every couple of years.  Animal Units is a unit of measure of manure output from livestock.  1 Holstein cows = 1.4 Animal Units, therefore our 200 cows are equal to 280 animal units, but our additional heifers and calves add to that total. 

Tomorrow we have our County Feedlot Office scheduled to visit us.  As part of her inspection, she will be touring all accepts of our farm.  We will present to her records of where our manure has been hauled, how much was applied, and what nutrients were in the manure for the past 3 years.  She will inspect our heifer and dry cow lots to determine if we manage our runoff (making sure there is no runoff).  She will be inspecting our manure storage for our lactating cows, to determine if we have adequate storage, as well as checking ground water (making sure it is free of contamination).  Since we are over 300 Animal Units, we work hard to maintain our farm and have a nutrient plan. 

Odor is another concern that our officer will be checking.  We work hard to control odor through covers on our pits and hauling manure when the wind is blowing away from the neighbors, but there are a couple times during the year that the farm does smell....cow poop does happen on a dairy farm.  We try to be as kind to our neighbors as possible.

Part of the purpose of this visit is also to make sure a new project that we have planned for this winter, can still be constructed.  We are working to make some changes to our buildings for the betterment of our cows....so stay tuned for pictures and updates on what we have up our sleeves ;)

Manure Management Meetings on Friday

It's been a busy weekend, but I wanted to take some time to recap some of the things that we worked on Friday.  We had a BUNCH of meetings on Monday at the farm with the various professional that we work with to help us make good choices for our land and resources.  This year we are planning to grow our 1st crop of corn!  Previously Jonathan and I purchased all of the feed that we feed our cows from my father in law.  Growing our own crops (at least part of our feed needs) will allow us to save money as we can work to grow feed at a lower cost than we can purchase it...not that my father in law ripped us off, but now we can use our own labor instead of paying him and our own manure instead of giving it away to neighbors. 

We work with our local cooperative's agronomy department, which helps us mange our soils and crops. We pulled soil samples a few weeks ago to determine the quality of the soil in our field.  The good news is that with the management of manure in the previous years resulted in some very fertile soils that will only require a small amount of commercial fertilizer to get the corn started.  The remaining nutrients are already in the soil thanks to cow manure from last fall!  Another excellent bonus is that this lower level of commercial fertilizer will not only reduce the total cost of growing corn but increase the biological activity of the soil microbes (bacteria) which break down cow manure and crop residue (leaves and stalks left over from last year).  We were excited to hear this news and even more excited to get into the fields to get that corn planted!

We also work with a private practice agronomist/manure management specialist.  His name is Al, and he helps us keep track of so many things on our farm regarding manure.  Al has been sampling our manure for the past few years, making sure that we don't over or under apply manure to our soils.  This insures that we will always apply our cow manure at the appropriate rate.  We have even calibrated all of our manure spreaders so we know how many pounds/tons of manure we apply per acre.  One project that we have our friend Al working on right now, is recalculating our manure management plan.  Our manure management plan is a document of many pages which accounts for the amount of manure that our cows produce each year and how many acres that are required in order to apply that manure.  A series of manure samples, soil samples, and calculations are included and used to determine those acres.  As our herd has grown this past winter, we have to re-calcualte the manure management plan, making sure yet again that we do not over apply manure. 

Maintaining our soils is our number one goal.  Manure is not a pollutant when used properly, but instead a GREAT fertilizer which grows some of the best corn in the area!  I even use manure to grow my flowers, fruits and vegetables....and I have an amazing crop each year!