Cess Haanstra Greiden Farms Ltd. R.R. # 2 St. Marys, Ontario N4X 1C5, Canada Phone: 519-349-2806 Email:haanstra@quadro.net Planning For Success in Canada History: It is a pleasure to talk to you about my business, the dairy industry, which I started in 1972 in Holland after I graduated from Agriculture College. My parents had a small farm in the Southern part of Holland and in 1970 they had a chance to move to the Flevopolder, a new area in Holland, land reclaimed out the sea. The farm of 40 hectares was a mixed farm cash crop with dairy cows. Since 1978 we farmed in a partnership with my parents, and my brother. In 1973 I traveled to the USA and Canada with 2 friends and since then I was convinced that there were more opportunities for farming in another part of the world. But since we were building up a new farm at home, which was a challenge too I kept building up my future in Holland, married Hinny, my wife for almost 29 years now and started a family. In 1983 the quota system got introduced and since we were milking 160 cows it gave us a start of 1.4 million liters milk. After that time we got a few quota cuts. In 1985 my parents retired and we took over the home farm. I bought my parents as well as my brother out, who started a cash crop farm at his parents in law. We bought more land in Holland but the thought of farming overseas was always in the back of my mind. With all the rules and regulations in Holland, the unhealthy tax environment, very high tax rate, lots of regulations for manure mineral balance, building permits, restrictions for expanding, high quota and land prices it made it for us easier to decide to relocate. Our first intentions was the States, because there was no quota system, had a free market, and was easy to expand the farm. We traveled quite a few times back and forth to the States and also to Canada and found an area in Canada with lots of opportunities to grow and to raise our family in a way we wanted. The biggest reason we chose Canada was social life and social security. In October 1991 we sold our farm in Holland with 120 cows and 10.0000 litre production and on January 9, 1992 we moved to Canada with our family of 4: 3 boys and a girl, then 7, 5,3, and 1 year old and a dog of 5 years. In the area of St. Marys, between Stratford and London we started from scratch, building everything on a nice open space with lots of opportunities to grow. 131
On 200 acres bare land we built a house, shop, bunker silos, free stall barn with milking parlor, holding area and a second barn for calves, close up cows and calving pens. We started with 800.000 liters of milk and 110 cows incl. Dry cows. In those first years, when the facilities were not full, we were raising heifers for other dairy farms and did custom work., so that gave some extra cash flow., which is very important We focused more on buying quota than on buying land. Milk quota cash flows better than buying land. It was not too hard to rent land in our area. During the years we started growing to maximize the facilities with milking 2x and a production of 35/36 liter average and 12 hours intervals. It was time to start milking 3x. We got a response of 11 till 12 percent, that means 3-4 liters more per cow per day, and it is a lot better for the cows udder health. So we got a very good return on time and extra expenses. We added on to the buildings a couple times,.and during the years we were able to buy neighbors land. Farm Details: The key to a successful business is to start with maximizing your return on investment, no matter where in the world you milk cows. We farm 1200 acres, we own 600 and rent about another 600 acres. We own 550 kg quota, and milk 430 cows. There are about 500 milking cows including dry cows. We work with 5 full time employees and 4 part timers for the night milking. The milk times are at 4 am, 12.30 pm and 8 pm. We do a bit of custom work. The field work, except the combining and baling, is done by ourselves. Most of the repair work is taken care of by us as well. Hoof trimming and 60% of the breeding is done by us. You will find me mostly at the hoof trim box so I can keep a close eye to all the activities in the barn. Farming Theory: I am convinced that high production is the key of low cost, spreading it out over more liters, even when the cost per cow is a little bit higher, it ends up being low on a per liter basis. It is not what you pay a good man per hour what counts, it is what he or she cost per liter of milk shipped. High production per cow starts with good genetics. We have 2 mating programs: Select Sires and Genervations. It is a recommendation for what we use for breeding. I look at good production, using a high milk bull, not giving up on other traits. Then combine type, feet and legs, udder and size. The dry-cow vaccination is administered by spread shots: a 3x vaccination with J5 for E-coli and mastitis, 1x for Corona and Corota virus and 1x with Bovishield four for BVD and IBR. All cows after 46 days freshen, will be started up on pre-ovsynch, followed by heifers natural in heat breeding program. Good high productive cows will be bred many times or we will use our own bull. Culling cows depends on how good she is with feet and legs, udder and production. We will cull cows when they produce less than 15/16 liters milk per day, depends on filling quota or incentives. 132
DHI is important for us by supplying information of individual cell counts, blood level urea, production etc. that we need for the breeding program. Classifying cows is also important for herd improvement. Field Crops The most important factor of how to get high milk production with good components and keep healthy cows, is the excellent quality of forage.it starts with good land, good varieties of hay- lage, silage, good yields, good digestion of crop and good equipment to harvest on time. Have your equipment ready to go when it is the right time to harvest, keep a good eye on the weather forecast, have enough capacity as well as men and machines when you want to start harvesting. We grow special corn silage varieties, the leafy ones with high digestion and high yields. Alfalfa crops that we grow is 90% with 10% added English rye grass (1 lbs/acre). We store the feed in 6 bunker silos, 5 bunks are 150 feet long and 25 feet wide and a wall of 10 feet. We push up the feed to about 16 feet high. One bunk specific for corn silage is 150 feet long and 45 feet wide and 10 feet high walls. Harvesting hay is done with a 16 foot disc mower with rubber conditioning rolls. This is picked up with a pull type harvester, rated up to 300 horsepower, there is a high dump behind the harvester. 1 or 2 dump wagons will pick the loads up and transport crops from the fields to the silos. We pack the hay with a 160 horsepower JD loader and sometimes need the help from a JD7520 tractor loader with duels. The corn silage is harvested with a 3 row corn head and transported and packed the same way as haylage harvesting is done. High moisture corn is stored in a Harvestore upright silo and in a bunk silo.we use preservatives on all forages and high moisture corn. Cow Comfort We built a 4 row dairy barn with 10 foot curtains on the side and a center feed alley, with all head locks. We use a manure scraper system on a solid floor and 3 dump pits. All floors and crossovers are grooved. The stalls are mushroom- style - free stalls with a canvas belt as a neck bar, which give some extra room when cows get up. The cows lay in a full pack of dry killed sawdust, no shavings, with a 2x6 bedding saver board behind the cows to keep the sawdust in the stalls. We add lime 4 times a week and we scrape the stalls clean every milking when the cows have to go to the holding area. We think bedding cleanness is very important, as well as the bedding for cows to lay down in. The manure scraper has to run 10 times in 24 hours. The small amounts of manure in front of scrapers keeps cows cleaner, easier for the milkers and less mastitis. We feed once per day in the morning, and we will push up the feed 5 /6 times per day. We group the cows in 4 different groups. In the back of the barn is a feed room and commodity shed. The holding area and milking parlor are attached to the barns. The dry cows are housed in a 2 row free stall barn with slatted floors We keep 133
them in 2 groups, the dry off and the close up group. They have the same stalls and bedding but a slatted floor with manure pit underneath. There is a calving area in a straw pack and the just born calves are housed in small calf pens for 2-3 days and will then be moved to the barn with the hutches. The calves are raised in hutches inside a calf barn. There are 60 hutches, with curtains on the sidewalls. The hutches stand on a sand bed. We put straw in first and after that sawdust. In the winter time we keep them on straw. The calves will be fed milk in pails with a nipple and they get hay and dry feed and water in the hutches. At 2 ½ months old they are taken off the milk, they will go to a barn with all straw pens and a feed gate. At 4 months they will move to the slatted floors with free stalls. The heifers are raised on rubber mats with saw dust on top, also mushroom stalls and slatted floors. Milking: 2x10 herringbone rapid exit milk metering automatic takeoff Boumatic system. Rubber flooring in the parlor and 1/3 in the holding area, 2/3rd of the holding area is a slatted floor. 1 person milks, with a capacity of 75-80 cows per hour. We have daily pick up, and our tank holds about 20.000 liters milk. Since we repair mostly ourselves, we have a workshop. There is an implement shed with a storage built for chopped straw, 2 small silos for brewers grain (size 15x40) and across the road a hay shed. Labour It is very important is to work with good motivated people, who all have an interest in their jobs. If we have to have a new employee we put an ad in the paper, invite them for an interview and a farm tour. I will explain the job, the expectations, the working hours, and the salary. Mostly I will train them myself.,i will tell them what to do and how to do it and explain why we do it a certain way. If they do a good job we will let then know, and make them feel important in the business and reward them with a good salary. It is important to thank them for the good job and their interest in our business and always take time if they have questions or concerns. Supply management It is a great system and a good thing to have. If you want to milk cows in Canada you got to have this system. It brings organized marketing and reliability. The negative point is the high debt, caused by the high quota prices. For young farmers it is very hard to get into the dairy business and it slows down the expansions too. You need to manage debt. It is best if the debt is kept under the $2,00 per liter. This number is meant for a farm that has lots of assets, like land. If you have a small land base and you have to buy a lot of feed or you do not have machinery, so you will have high custom expenses than $1,50 /$1,65 is more realistic. The milk prices need to be more sensitive to markets. We need to keep the imports out by perhaps taking a few cents less on the blend price. This would do more good in 134
growing the market and it will take the pressure off quota demand.that means a lower quota price. It would create more security for the future. My opinion is that DFO or DFC should sit more down with processors and talk about marketing.. We have a good system but we have to watch how to handle it in the near future, before we loose it. I think we have to step down a bit. We live and farm in good country with lots of opportunities, good climate to milk cows, good land to grow good crops a good infra structure. The industry is still profitable, but definitely less interesting than it was with lower return on investment. I am still growing the business and buying quota as needed, but there are economies of scale and what I am achieving now makes me think the opportunities to increase efficiency further are running out. The parlor is running 5 ½ hours per milking 3x, so there is almost no more milking time available. The Future: Shift time for one milking also works well from a labour stand point. Because of growing energy costs (to protect the dairy from this threat) and also to diversify and invest capital in something which will likely have a good return on investment, I am looking into a wind tribune. Little ones do not pay because they are not efficient enough. I am not interested in digesters because I do not see manure odour as a big issue on my farmstead and I see much more management and more maintenance and less net return for a digester than for a wind tribune. Robotic milking as a way to reduce the biggest piece of dairy farm labour interests me, but there are too many questions remaining for me to risk switching to robotic milking on this large dairy. I plan to keep an eye on other large dairies trying this and might start a smaller herd down the road to gain experience with robotic milking. With two sons interested in farming, I would like to set up a second dairy down the road or somewhere else. It will be a big challenge to set up and split up the farm in the right way for the next generation. Now is the time to think and talk about the future. I am convinced that Canada is one of the best countries to live and to raise a family and to milk cows. Besides running the business and my family life, I found some time to be active in the dairy industry as well. For 5 years I am a member of the Oxford Milk Committee and since this past December I am a delegate member of Zone 2 of Gea Lea Foods. Every month we as dairy farmers have a study club to go to with a variety of speakers and I am active in this committee as well. Last but not least I like to go on holidays too, either traveling around in different parts of the world or enjoying the sun on the beach in the winter months with my family. 135