The misconception of big dairy operations not caring for the environment or being a “factory” is something that’s been around for a while now, but it couldn’t be more wrong for most large Wisconsin dairy farms. That’s why we stopped by Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation member Hank Wagner and his son Shawn of Wagner Farms Inc in Oconto Falls to take a look at some of the processes they have in place to make the dairy sustainable.
Hank explained that when he started working with his father, they had a little over 20 cows, but have since then expanded to 900 animals on the farm. “There’s so much different with technology and how we take so much better care of our animals, and our environment, and people,” he said. “So it’s dramatically different and it’s dramatically better for everybody. I wouldn’t want to go back to the way it was done.”
He spoke a bit on the term “factory farm” because those words get thrown around very frequently by those outside of the farming community. Simply because a family runs a bigger operation doesn’t mean that it’s a factory-run dairy farm. “We are a family farm. Each cow is getting taken care of as an individual,” Hank explained. Every cow on the farm wears a Fitbit-like tag to track its health so that if something does go wrong with the animal, they can catch it very quickly and handle the issue in a timely manner. “Our family has to have more cows today than what we had many years ago because of all of the other expenses,” he adds. “It would be impossible to make it with the same number of cows that my dad or the generations before us had.”
“We’re not having all of these animals to be big. We have to have enough animals to survive as a family dairy farm.” – Hank Wagner
When it comes to the sustainability side of the dairy, Shawn explained some of the things their dairy does to help the environment such as using cover crops. “The biggest part now is the whole cover crop scenario,” he said. “When we refer to cover crops, basically say as soon as the fall harvest on a cornfield is taken off, normally right after that, there’s normally rye or winter triticale. Those crops are normally put in right away so that there’s always a green-growing crop so that it’s absorbing the nutrients in the soil and there isn’t this spring run-off of soil and soil erosion come springtime or in the fall if there’s heavy rain.”
He went on to explain that they currently have 400 cover crop acres and those acres are doing a lot to help the health of the soil, it benefits the earthworms so they can feed, and really helps the crops grow since there’s a continued crop growing with them. Plus, in the spring the farm can no-till crops right into those acres without having loose soil and soil erosion. “Even after the first year, the next year going into the growing crop season it dramatically helped efficiencies, and the crop growing, and we saw a pretty big improvement just in the first year,” Shawn said.
His advice for any farmer who’s looking into cover crops is to just try it. “Once we tried it, we saw the benefits from it right away. That was a huge step for us just to try it and there’s been a handful of people that have kind of pushed us and encouraged us to try it and I’m thrilled and happy that we’re doing it.”
Shawn explained that another huge part of their farm on the sustainability side is the precision planting and the precision of applying manure and fertilizer. For example, at Wagner Farms they use a program called “The Operation Center,” so any time they do something in the field, it’s all recorded. That also helps them be able to preplan and plan for future years and be able to share that data with others. Looking back at the data can assist the farm in knowing what should be done the same, what could be tweaked a bit, and gives the farm a head-start on constantly growing a better crop by learning from previous years.
The reason these aspects of the farm are so important to be transparent about is that as Hank told us, “the sustainability message is getting to be demanded or searched out by the non-farm people.” He mentioned that their sustainability message is that as a dairy farm, they’re an incredibly sustainable place. Everything a dairy farm does always comes full circle in the end.
“We grow these crops that we in turn feed to our cattle. Then those cattle produce milk, and cheese, and ice cream, and butter, and all of that, and they also produce manure. Manure is actually a natural fertilizer and it starts that circle all over again growing the next year’s crops to feed our cattle,” Hank said. “So it’s a non-ending circle of life from crops, to cattle, to manure, and back to crops again.”
The two brought up the fact that it’s important to keep people in the know when it comes to what dairy farms are doing because, after the pandemic, people grew a very large interest in where food comes from, how it’s made, and what the whole process really is. One reason behind that interest was seeing empty store shelves where there were never empty shelves before the outbreak. It made people think.
The big takeaway is that dairy farms such as Wagner Farms care just as much about the environment as a small farm does. These farms keep growing because it’s the only way to survive in the industry these days. Shawn said that if anyone is interested in seeing how their operation works or has questions, feel free to contact them on their Facebook page.
You can hear the full interview with the father-son duo on our agriculture podcast page.
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