You may think your reason is that you believe in the
organic farming concepts, or you see a marketing opportunity to earn a premium
price, or you prefer the contractually set organic milk prices over the
fluctuating conventional market price swings, and you have realized the talent
to meet the certification requirements, or all of the above.
However, I would suggest the
better answer is that you are first an organic “farmer”. Unlike the option a conventional dairyman
has of operating a specialized dairy facility contracting all feed inputs from
conventional farmers and commodity markets, avoiding the land management and
farming equipment investments (beyond a manure handling strategy), by
definition of the organic certification requirements for producing organic
milk, you have to manage an acreage base dedicated to production of fresh green
forage for the full extent of the grazable seasons. Thus, as an organic “dairyman” you are by
definition and organic “farmer”, unable to create a specialized farming system
consumers and food activists might criticize as a “factory farm”.
Thus all challenges to successful
management of an organic dairy are rooted in the necessity of having a more
traditional farming enterprise: (1) you need land to pasture, thus you must
plant a base of forages your animals will graze; (2) you need land growing feed harvested for
the winter feeding season, thus you must have winter feed storage
capacity; (3) you will likely be raising
your own calves for replacements, unless you can find a heifer grower willing
to certify his farm and follow organic rules;
(4) you will have the daily choring and milking routines for the dairy
cows. Basically, due to the parameters
of transition into organic certification and the continuing record keeping and
practice verification to maintain certification, most organic dairymen find it
difficult to “farm out” any major part of their enterprise, or to utilize much
in the way of external feeding or fertilizing or veterinary inputs.
In that sense, the organic
dairyman is the “everyman” of modern
agriculture, managing biology as nature has designed, to recycle existing
nutrients rather than constantly seeking external input to replace consumed resources. A
true organic dairyman does not give away manure to other farmers, for example,
needing to recycle that fertility back into the soil from which it
originated. An organic dairyman will
practice crop rotation in part to retain plant and root residues that help to
build the organic content of the topsoil, and will maintain deep rooted
perennial seedings that draw essential minerals up from the subsoil and create
water holding capacity in soil structure.
The perspective of an organic
dairyman is based in the conservation of soil, improving microbial soil life
and building organic soil structure;
next, in optimizing the forage production of that soil and maximizing
the length of the grazable season to best utilize that production; finally, in milk produced from these
processes that will be nutrient dense and thus live up to the expectations of
the organic consumer. The best
quality of milk comes not just from pristine sanitation in milk harvesting
systems, but from the basic health and contentment of clean cows who produce
it.
Thus perhaps the first point of
divergence in organic cattle breeding selection compared to what is
commercially acceptable, is in an emphasis on breeding robust, healthy, even-
tempered cows with sound natural reproduction ability. The necessity for cows to have these
traits is greater than any necessity to focus selection on maximum lactation
yield capability.
In organic farming, grass was never a “weed”
Any farmer should have realized
by now that nature abhors bare ground.
In comparison to adjoining soil covered by green growth, bare ground “is
naked, thirsty, and running a fever”.
Bare ground is subject to sunlight evaporation of moisture and wind
erosion of its substance. Nature heals
this unhealthy condition by the germination of grass seeds accumulated in the
soil as well as those sown by transient graziers and birds (ingested seeds that
pass intact through digestive processes).
Grass is nature’s carpet, which if undisturbed over
multiple seasons provides the canopy to protect woody plants that will follow
it. Over longer periods of time, forests
grow into the grass meadows and in total, produce the multiples of
habitats that shelter all forms of wildlife.
Man in prehistory began as a
gatherer and hunter, so nature’s method of agriculture dominated.
As agriculture began, we cleared
forests and plowed up prairies and converted land to fields in which we grew row
crops which by definition are mostly annuals. Whether corn, edible beans, soybeans, sugar
or forage beets, alfalfa, milo, sorghum, or even the small grains (wheat,
barley, oats, spelts) our planters dropped seed into rows, and we then
cultivated the space between rows in order to prevent weeds from sapping
the sunlight, moisture and soil nutrients from our chosen crops. (95% of any crop essentially comes from
the sun and the rain, the residual 5% from the root uptake of soil
minerals).
But it was also obvious to the
farmers who pursued domestication of some animal species, that grass was
the basic food for the majority of species that we could domesticate. In a majority of cases, these species who
lived on grass were ruminants. Ruminants were uniquely evolved to turn
cellulosic grass fibers into nutrient energy and in turn produce edible
products that had both edible fat energy and muscle protein. Their milk proved a unique suspension of
both fats and proteins with added (fat soluble) vitamins and dissolved
minerals. Its enzyme contents aided
both in allowing humans to digest it raw or to culture it into more storable
froms. Thus there is an ancient
Biblical saying, “all flesh is grass”, because grass was
an edible food for a majority of the herbivore species, while the minority of
carnivore species could feed on these animals.
The conventional chemical-based
agriculture of the modern era has this defect of requiring bare ground
alongside highly specialized plant varieties selected not for maximum hardiness
but for maximum potential yields.
Modern row crops are grown in strict monoculture, all competition from
other plant species suppressed for the length of the growing season. First we utilized only mechanical tillage
and cultivation, then developed chemical “no tillage” and weed suppression, so
these highly specialized hybrid plants could bear fruit.
For the conventional dairy, row
crops are the feed base, and must produce a 365 day supply in a mechanically
harvested and generally fermented or dried stored form. Conventional dairy farm units have been
expanding dramatically to recover higher costs of specialized feed production
or feed harvesting equipment and feed storage structures, seeking economies of
scale to balance out the ultimely higher input costs of utilizing all the
latest chemical, mechanical and transgenetic technology. Ultimately the conventional expansion
dairy becomes a monocultural corn crop farming enterprise, as corn will produce
the most forage tonnage per acre at the lowest storage cost per ton, and is a
useful crop for recycling large volumes of raw manure.
( In organic farming, grass
was never a “weed” )
For the organic farm dairy, given
the certification grazing requirement and recognizing the more perennial
possibilities in the propogation of higher energy grass species, there are key
differences in the management design of the dairy.
First, for the
length of the spring-summer-fall seasons, as long as grass will grow, cows can
have access to grazing. For the
period of day they graze, they will also spread their own manure, in a lighter
pattern of distribution than usually occurs from mechanical spreading (which
generally today requires immediate following tillage incorporation or
specialized subsoil knifing to meet environmental rules). The organic dairyman will have at most a
150 day winter season feed storage need, not 365 days of storage, and does not
usually find feed mixing apparatus as used in conventional feeding to be time
or cost effective—grazing cows being adapted to eating stored feed in its natural
length cut and not utilizing as much processed grain requiring mixing with
processed forages to produce a “balanced ration”.
Unlike a monocultural corn-based
feeding system, a grass forage based feeding system is more naturally
“balanced” as that is defined in terms of needed energy, protein and
minerals. Grass harvested at its
appropriate pre-seed stage of growth will generally be 16% to 18% protein and
mid 70s on megacals of energy as tested (and most feed tests, being corn starch
based, understate the energy content of digestible fiber). These are levels that conventional
corn-based dairymen must contrive from mixing of various commodities, including
purchased hay and/or straw that is needed for the “scratch” factor demanded by
rumen function.
Unlike the specialized hybrid row
crop feeds of conventional dairying, the grass-based forage producer can
propogate a multi-species base of forages that benefit from the “companionable”
nature of edible grass species.
Annuals can be interseeded within perennial stands to create more energy
dense “salad bar” grazing opportunities for cows, especially in geography where
summer heat sends cold-season grass species into a “dormancy”. For most organic farms, success in
optimizing forage production comes from the equivalent of tilling 20% of the
land annually, to produce warm season annuals. A combination of excess spring perennial
yields and harvested summer annuals provides the winter feed required.
Targeting calvings to the seasons
when grass grows best (spring and fall in our Midwestern USA geography)
generally matches cow appetite to perennial forage growth. Having calves born in two seasons
simplifies winter housing for replacements (four groups: fall calves, spring
heifers, fall yearlings, springers) but creates two intense breeding seasons
(early summer, early winter) and thus reinforcing the need for an organic
producer to select genetics on strong natural fertility and ability for
unassisted calving. Again, this
suggests a higher emphasis than has been placed in conventional herds on
fertility or calving ability, as confined housing designs generally need to
calve cows all year long to avoid overcrowding of fresh cow and sick cow
facilities.
Finally, as a forage based fiber
energy ration base will promote more stable body condition and daily grazing
activity better muscle tone and feeding vigor in milking cows, selection for
flatter lactation curves (more lactation persistency) is more relevant to milk
yield than a conventional selection of genetics on high peak day production
stimulated from TMR energy density.
An organic farm is optimized as a multi-culture
As noted, lots of conventional
dairies plant one crop year after year – corn. They will buy all other feed stuffs externally
as commodities. Over time, as a
result of compaction of topsoils and loss of organic matter in subsoils, the
monocultural corn farm will face rising input costs to produce the same yields
in feed. Thus over time, marginal
profitability of the dairy declines.
Increasing levels of external
inputs (higher cost GMO seed, higher cost specialty chemicals, higher-cost
formulated fertilization, eventually higher cost replacement with more
specialized equipment) may produce some marginal gains in yields, but close
examination of the financial data such farms generate indicates a slow decline
in returns on invested capital. Once
return on capital falls below the costs of financed capital, any expansion to spread
costs comes to a halt, and with good reason:
lenders prefer to see loans repaid over reasonable time frames.
Once all costs are finally
considered, it can be proven that a monoculture approach to farming is not
sustainable, and not just on the financial return side—history proves it
unsustainable on the biological side as well. Nature’s farming is pluralistic, and
fertility is enhanced by multiple species of plants and animals coexisting (and
recycling nutrients) on the land.
Most organic dairies are thus
pluralistic in their choices of crop species and multicultural in the
establishment of perennial pasturages.
This is working with nature, instead of denying nature the ultimate
authority over soil and its fruits.
Over time, the optimization of multicultural plant propogation shows its
results in higher seasonal feed yields and healthier animals whose yields of
milk and growth are more profitable at the margin of increasing yields.
An organic dairyman should resist
all the conventionally-based peer pressures to buy into the monocultural
concepts. These include “the best cow
is the one who has the highest lactation total” and that success in dairy is in
maximizing per cow milk production.
These also include “a clean field of grain is going to produce the
highest yield”. More importantly, the organic dairyman to
be successful at optimizing the profitability of his farm must not
focus all of his decisions on milk checks alone.
All production is a result
of prior and future reproduction. The beef cow-calf operator, the sow
farrowing operator, the layer hen house operator, and those farmers who still
rotate crops, all understand this—fertility is the key to farm income. Thus the inoculant on the seed you select
may ultimately be more important in insuring germination than the selection of
hybrid traits that predict yields under optimal growing conditions. Thus the number of live piglets may be more
important to farrowing than maximizing growth of the ones who live. Thus getting every cow bred for good calving
weather and selecting traits for live calves produces more total calf weight
than maximizing the rate of gain on a calf crop with 20% open cows and
stillbirths. Thus for a dairy, getting
every cow bred for a desirable calving window when forage supply is optimized
is going to produce more milk at less cost than pushing feed to produce high
lactation peaks and not getting cows bred back for the next desirable calving
window.
Maintaining soil health will
provide the potential for optimized seed germination and that crop fertility
more than anything will determine the production of animals that will be eating
that feed.
( An organic farm is optimized
as a multiculture )
The organic dairyman has the same
income opportunities as the conventional dairyman—he can sell milk, he
can sell deacon calves or feeders, he will have “spent cows” (culls) to
sell. If he is on top of reproduction
and calf management, he should also have surplus replacement heifers or cows to
sell. In fact, most economists who
have compared the average of conventional dairying to the average of grazing
dairying have noted that a typical grazing dairy gets one more year of life
on average from their cows than the typical confinement dairy.
With equal reproduction rates and
calf survival, a typical grass-based organic dairy should have an income stream
from selling extra cows. How many
organic dairyman actually take this into consideration in their management
decisions? When making breeding
decisions do we ask if the matings planned would maximize the sale value of
surplus cows in the replacement market?
Based on conversations at lots of
grazier gatherings, I would say NO – the chief selection criteria
of the typical organic dairyman is to use bulls who will increase milk
yields, period, because the higher base price for organic milk makes
all other selection criteria of lesser importance. The next most likely selection criteria of
the typical organic dairymen is to routinely crossbreed on the
assumption that hybrid vigor is the key criteria to having healthier cattle.
Neither of these makes sense once
a key paradigm of organic farming is applied to dairying.
Production yield on a
grass-based dairy is limited by the volume of grass produced per acre.
If your forages are yielding 8,500 pounds of milk per
acre, and you have 100 acres, 50 cows may produce 17,000 pounds of milk per cow
per season, while 100 cows may produce 8,500 pounds of milk per cow per
season. Our management of cows is
ultimately management of the harvest of vegetative feed across as long a
growing season as we can contrive. If
we leave grass in the field unharvested, we have not maximized our milk
yields. If we do not constantly
overseed to insure a maximum production from young plants in their optimal life
stage of growth, we have not maximized our milk yields.
By contrast, production
yield in a confinement dairy is optimized by full feed available to cows of
maximum genetic production potential.
It does not matter as much what your forages yield per acre, it
only matters how many total acres of forage and grains you can acquire to
provide an energy dense TMR that matches the genetic ability of your cows. For the confinement dairy, once every free
stall contains a cow, the more dry matter per cow ingested, the more milk per
cow we produce. The only reason a
high talent confinement dairyman concerns himself with per acre yields is that
it reduces his expense for external feed inputs always being used. As he is more cognizant of his daily feed
costs, his goal is to maximize production per cow in hopes of producing a
profit over those feed costs.
However, it is difficult to calculate if the highest milk yield cows are
profitable at the margin of their feed intake, knowing that each added source
of energy density to support highest production comes at a higher cost than the
feed forage base.
Organic dairymen should pursue a
management and genetic strategy that optimizes production of milk on a basis of
“milk per acre” and then maximizes recovery from all animal sales. This can be as simple as waiting to cull
spent cows until the end of the grazing season so they have gained salable
weight and condition, or as complex as utilizing mating selection and better
rearing of all heifers such that any extras we sell have the eye appeal and
size desired by cow auction buyers.
