Nelius van Greunen on Farming - Waikato SA / AfiMilk

welcome to Franklin booray our family's farming in this area for the last 65 years at this southern slope of 13 equal amount uns near George my grandfather started off farming here his subsistence dairy farmer today our family farms on different dairy farms will also run potato production and blueberry farms our core business is still dairy farming we've got five productive dairy farms we will milk 4,000 cows of cheese is enough Holsteins we also run two separate farms where we raise the Efus to supply the dairy farms with new animals this form is called Yonkers hook on this farm we mark 1200 cows the farm is 500 hectares in size the annual rainfall on this farm is 914 millimeters per annum we run this hurt on pastures mainly throughout the year we also add some silage in wintertime we build new rotary theory on this farm in 2012 it's a rotary with 66 Waikato machines on it it's all fitted on a rock wood platform and the management system we use his African we use Africa man all our farms because it's very user friendly and it managed all the critical things that we do manage through the system and therefore we can evaluate between the farms and we can also pinch mark with other farms with similar systems in the area the production system of this farm is based on quality pastures we grow mainly mixture of grass and clovers we produce high quality grazing all year round in winter time we'll also escort annual ryegrass on this field you can see the grass clover when this exists in springtime we try and utilize the excess through the making of high quality silage to get the rapid regrowth in spring and early summer the carrying capacity on this farm is growing year by year as we progress in the bullying of soil quality and the balance in soil and also the production of the plants itself the bulk of our grazing of course he stole grass clovers especially under the coot irrigation systems like the center pivots however we've got fields that we can't irrigate all year round and especially in dry spells when the irrigation of water is limited loosen is a very good alternative because it's not that dependent on a high rainfall or all year-round irrigation and therefore a field like this fit into our system very well because apart from grazing it's very suitable for hiking and Silas as well on the party system we've got periods of shortage and we've got periods of abundance in spring and early summer we make lots of silage from the excess grass on the pastures and then in autumn and winter we need to feed it back on this facility we feed silage back to the cows during milking times or just before after the cows come in from the grazing and they got access to this silage and we then add some roughage to the ration to keep them at the optimal production level all through the year we've designed the farm such that all the cows is got access to proper drinking water all the time so in all the paddocks are drinking drops within short walking distance and then in the holding cross there is enough water drops and then also on the feed path where they take in dry roughage they need a lot of drinking space because they take a lot of water in there and it need to be accessible we also clean these water troughs very often because they get filled in there so it's properly drained and flushable it's imperative that we irrigate most of the crops that we produce especially our pastures therefore the availability of water on the farm is critical we have to store water in rainfall periods to have it available during hot and dry spells our water or originates from the catchment in the mountains that flowed down into little streams where we can pump it into dams for storage we also in some cases make use of poor holes and and we also dam water from surface runoff during high rainfall periods we also recycle water the best quality water used in the milking parlor that water are also recycled after use to wash down the holding cross that water are stored in a dam from where we use it for irrigation on pastures of the Avery crazy therefore we can use the water at least three times and using the effluent economically on the partial as well we try and use the water economically by scheduling most of the irrigation during night time by doing that we save on water with less evapotranspiration but also on energy using the lower Eskom tariffs during night time the base silage fit very well into our feeding system in winter time when we don't have enough crazy we need to supplement and the my silage provide the additional roughage as well as some additional energy to the rations that we feed to the cows therefore between our farms we plot in all together 220 hectares of maize per annum the the yields are quite high and the quality very good at this stage we are based on average 65 tonnes per hectare and that provide in enough additional feed for all our animals through winter to be supplemented this is our specialized coffee reading unit for the Jersey cars we bring all the cars from the sleet different jersey farms here one day after birth on the farm where they carve down we make sure that they get colostrum within the first six hours they don't take it out by themselves we force-feed them then in here they are cared for and they are reared in these pens up to 70 days we feed them four liter of milk twice a day and then from here they go out into little groups where they are here to a point where they are able to go out on the grazing we weigh them once a month to make sure that I grow according to the growth curve that we require we also make sure that they start taking up concentrated feed as early as possible the most common diseases that we've got amongst our animals are anaplasmosis and rate water therefore we have to control ticks and therefore we tip them once a week in summertime and during wintertime every second week we don't clean them completely we still got ticks on the form and on the animals so that it's got resistance but we have to control the situation with a tepee the cows need to walk a distance of about two kilometers radius around this dairy parlor and therefore they have to quite a distance we have to make sure that we've got proper walkways for them therefore we constructed in such a way that it's properly trained so that the feed is not on this silhouette and there is no stones or objects that can harm the feed the road is laid out in such a way that there's no unnecessary steep sections that couldn't waste the energy therefore it's quite comfortable and we keep the roads in a proper condition actually the road is much better than the roads that the vehicles run on but from hidden buddha ray our staff is very important to us we employ a lot of people the staff at the dairy farms are all permanently employed we also employ temporary people that do the seasonal work at the blueberry and the potato divisions we are fortunate in in the sense that our staff has been employed for a very long time they with us and they know the situation they know the farm they know what they're doing we play them more than the new minimum wage they also get proper housing with electricity with toilet facilities with solar heating we also provide free primary education on four farm at the cost of the employer to the kids pre-primary of all the labors we also provide church facilities we've got sporting facility and we've got a rack being a netball team for recreational purposes we've got a long-standing relationship with the group of workers and we also has got a union that we like eyes with as needed to do proper management we need a lot of management information lots of these information comes from the afikomen management program we also gather information through the fourth quadrant programme from measuring the grazing and the growth of the pastures to help us in these decision-making we use outside experts as well like our feeding consultant we use out of it and we also use a consultant advice on pasture management this team of experts together with our internal management team we can do a lot of fine-tuning especially on feeding and management we feed our animals in parlour to balance the rations our system is designed such that we have the feed components as energy the protein sources and the minerals separately so we can balance each cows a ration on a daily basis according to a production and the body needs we've got a drive to improve efficiency on the farms the farms working together contribute to each other in sharing resources and expertise this helps us to gain in efficiencies and this efficiency helps us in growing therefore we believe one should grow in efficiency rather than to grow in numbers first we try and keep a momentum in investing into practices and in infrastructure that could increase our efficiencies and therefore gain a competitive edge on the cost basis and in the market with the quality products that we deliver we really enjoy sharing our farm with you and we would like to invite you to win every two other garden route to visit the forum so that we can discuss our mutual interest in dairy farming you you

Channel: Emma-Lisa Lok

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Id: BQ7VxmNfBhM

Length: 14min 45sec (885 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 09 2013