B Y H . E . W A R R E N

Member for the Mid Western Region Milk Marketing Board.

I was a member of a team of four from the Milk Marketing Board* who visited North America in September, 1968, and whose main task was ‘to look into the trend of the ordinary dairy farmer towards larger farming units’. We travelled by plane for time was short and we had much to do. Although our interests lay behind the farm gate-we visited 38 farms in all-we felt it necessary to establish contact with research and advisory departments of governments and universities, to look round dairy plants and dairy equipment manufacturing estab- lishments, cattle breeding centres, and naturally to discuss at first hand with policy makers and administrators. Whilst we saw much that was different from current practice in this country we noticed much in common with it and pleasantly familiar to the scene at home.

There are 13 million dairy cows in the United States and 2.7 million in Canada compared with 2.7 million in England and Wales. Unlike here, however, the dairy industry is no longer expanding and in the USA has contracted in the 60s. Behind the farm gate however we found no depression arising from this general picture of the industry: in fact those still in the business of milk production and certainly those we visited were enthusiastic operators enjoying a price rise of 22 per cent in the last three years.

Everywhere we went farmers’ morale was high- though some experts were rather less optimistic in their assessment of future prospects.

Our farm visits fell into two distinct geographical groups :

Group 1. New York, Ontario, Michigan and

2. The Pacific States-California and Wisconsin.

Washington.

Visits to New York, Ontario, Michigan and Wisconsin Of the 26 farms visited in this area, 22 were chosen to show the way in which expanding farms were coping with the problems inherent in such a pro- cess, two were to meet a special request to see breeding herds, and two because they illustrated the more traditional in type and an average size unit respectively and afforded a better perspective of dairy farming as a whole than might otherwise have been obtained. Only a comparatively short

*J. Jackson, Vice-chairman (leader), S. J. L. Roberts, member for the West Midland Region, H. E. Warren, member for the Mid Western Region, E. D. Ashton, Head Office.

time was spent in each farm and it was on each occasion an intensive study with an enthusiastic host.

In New York State the cow barns attracted most of our attention (though here as well as in the majority of herds visited we saw stockmanship of a high order and keenness in breeding). One was four years old and the other was in course of construction with a broadly similar design. The cost as given in the Cornell costings was $34,000 (El 4,000), excluding milking parlour $2,000 (2800) and silo (tower) $9,000 (E3,750), equal to about 40 per cent of the value of the farmland. This indicates the importance attached to suitable housing for a herd of 120-180 cows. This type of barn, with modifications, is the accepted method of modern housing for a large dairy herd throughout North America. Provision had been made to ensure relative ease of feeding and cleaning as well as of milking, and this included feeding of fodder (silage/haylage) as well as concentrates, all on a generous scale and i n some cases ad lib. The cleaning out operation seemed to be the most troublesome and the general opinion was that more problems existed in this operation than in feeding; and we felt that our heavier rainfall would produce even more over here. There were of course diver- gences in barn design, some in matters of minute detail where one would have expected a clear single attitude, e.g. the provision or not of a narrow platform alongside the central feed trough to avoid fouling the trough, or again the non-acceptance of a uniform depth of feed trough-I4 inches in some and 24 inches in others with the same breed of cow and similar feeding environment.

We also saw stanchion barns, and rather unex- pectedly a very new one in the last farm we visited in the Los Angeles area. Apart from hearing the Professor of Agricultural Engineering at Guelph advocating this method in preference to free stalling we saw one such barn in Ontario and one in Wiscon- sin, both 100-plus cow units based on this method of housing and meeting the feeding problems that it entails by the use of very versatile mobile feed hoppers-called ‘Sputniks’. This aid, combined with the common dung channel manure conveyor in the stanchion barn, suggests that the stanchion is not entirely ruled out as a housing method : progressive men still operate it satisfactorily and economically. It is perhaps worth mentioning in this context that in England and Wales more than two-thirds of milk producers in each of the counties west of a line from Scarborough to Plymouth have their

104 Journal of the Society of Dair-v Technology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1970

TABLE I Milk production, yield/cow and cow numbers, Canada, USA

2,668 665

1,174 - -

Canada Number of milk cows ( loG) Average milk yield (gal/cow) Milk output (gal lo6)

0

- 10 t 1 5 +- 3

I960

1,069 943

1,008

1,933 930

1,798

78 1 1,082

845

~

2,965 580

1,720

- 14 +19 -1 2

10 + I 6 t 4

_____._.__

- 5 + I4 1 8

Ontario Number of milk cows ( lo6) beverage inilk yield (gd/cow) Milk output (gal lofi)

975 603 588

The United States Number of milk cows ( lof i) Average milk yield (galicow) Milk output (gal lo6)

17,515 68 1

I 1,929

New Yorlt State Number of milk cows ( loF) A\erage milk yield (gal/cow) Milk output (gal lo6) Wisconsin Number of milk cows ( lo6) Average milk yield (gal/cow) Milk output (gal loh)

__.__

1,248 790 986

2,150 801

1,723

California Number of milk cows ( l O e ) Average milk yield (gal/cow) Milk output (gal lo6) 78 1

925 - 5 698* 1 + I 6 645 + 10

13,324 855

11,559

*I967 milk yield in Ontario was 30 gallons below the 1966 figure. Source: Government (Central/Provincial) Statistics, Canada and the USA.

milking units in the cowshed, and only i n five counties in the south of England does parlour milking account for more than 60 per cent of milking units. The England and Wales figxes for 1968 are

Milking units in cowsheds 63 '/: Parlour milking 24 ;( Relay milking in sheds 9 7; Mobile bail 4 7;

Throughout the group of farms visited we noted the striking potential of maize as a food, both in the form of silage and as grain, and we observed the great economic advantage of pit or bunker storage methods ( $ 3 per ton (25/-) compared with $10 per ton (84/-) for tower silo storage). Yet the tower silo is not only a wcll known landmark across the North American landscape, which we had plenty of opportunity of studying from the low flying aircraft we used across the continent; but university husbandry experts we talked with were still debating its merits and were prepared to give it a place, particularly for units of up to 100 cows, though all agreed that beyond that the bunker had clear advantages based on more mechanized resources for quick harvesting to cope with weather and other hazards. We saw the two methods of feeding, the auger and the tractor/box

container in almost 50 : 50 proportion, the former associated with the tower. One farm in Michigan had the two storage methods operating side by side; there seemed to be a place for both and we were doubtful of some of the categorical statements for or against made in our press by British visitors to North America.

We were unable to see as much of field operations as we would have liked for we were there during one of the two vital months of the year, maize harvest- ing time-the other being seeding time in May. We were however pxzzled on almost every farm by an inability to account for the total stated farm area. Quite clearly the land was used almost entirely for the herd and its followers, but with a very specia- lized cropping pattern carried to a degree which clearly concentrated on less than 100 per cent of the farm area. It is the result not only of Government policy (diversification grants) but also of the great urge to coxentrate on the best land using it intensively to a degree that could be called zero grazing, if this term can be used to describe the provision of forage to the cow-in her feeding area-in any form (and in North America this would be mainly i n the conserved form of silage/ h aylage).

We noted that labour usage received priority

Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, V'ol. 33, No. 3, 1970 I05

United States

Average price paid for milk sold to plants and dealers _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~

Year

England and Wales

Net price ex farm -.

1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968*

4.15 4.23 4.81 5.02 5.18

Price/IOOIb. Pricelgallon (dollars) I (pence)

40.2 41.0 46.6 48.6 50.2

4.22 4.09 39.6 4.10 39.7

100.5 114.2 119.1 122.0

1965166 1966167 1967168 1968/69*

- Index I Year

(1960)=100

38.03 39.10 39.58 39.60

1960161 100.2 1961/62 97. I 1962163

~~~ ~

113.3 116.5 117.9 118.0

97.3 1963 j64 98.5 I 1964165

Pricelgallon Index (pence) (1960/61 =loo)

I-

33.57 100.0 33.42 33.05 34.78 103.6 37.68 I 112.2

A rate of exchange of 2.40 American dollars = El has been used throughout. *Forecast.

attention everywhere, for this was scarce. It was carefully used and liberally supported by mechani- cal aids in all operations throughout the range of herd size. We saw examples, of course, where the family unit was less than well used, but we also saw extravagance on the largest unit visited in Michigan, where the young owner (partner) admitted it and justified it on the ground of the need to have a reserve against a more fluid labour supply than is found over here.

Generally speaking in this group of 26 farms there was similarity in all aspects of the dairy farm enter- prise but no absolute rule of thumb principles applicable throughout, which left room for the innovator, and the North American dairy farmer is nothing if not that.

The Pacific States: California and Washington The eight farms in this group all had the stamp of the Californian attitude to dairying-a highly specialized operation devoted almost entirely to the job of milking the cows, bringing in all the feed from elsewhere ; the farming side was comparatively unimportant or almost nod-existent. Buildings were of necessity simple and were only necessary in Washington as protection against rain, and in California against sun. More sophisticated methods of cleaning were designed to speed up the milking process, and to add to the comfort of the operator as well as of the cow. The milking operation itself reached the peak of importance, for it was (with its immediately ancillary operations) the only task of the unit. We were well drilled in this concept of milk production, not only on the farms but even more during a visit to a dairy equipment manufacturer who specialized in milking units and almost had a contempt for the archaic approach to his funda- mental concept of milk production of our first group of dairy farmers. They were diverted, he said, too much by farming operations but things would change: this was the area where a hired man cost

his employer up to $12,000 per annum (&5,000) and with milk produced mainly from paid labour (unlike the first group) the entire operation of milk pro- duction was geared to a highly paid labour force. The profit margin on these farms, where almost all feed is purchased and its quality is of a known and high standard, depends on yields per cow reaching up to 2,000 gallons, which highlights the importance of the actual milking operation and demands a high degree of management. Although conditions in this area are so different from those in our own country nevertheless we recognized the value of their milking methods to us because of their intense specialization and experience in this very narrow aspect of milk production.

The impressions gained from farm visits and conversation with our mentors can be summarized under three headings : breeding, feeding and management.

Breeding In the dairying areas of New York State, and across to Wisconsin including Ontario in Canada, A1 is used on about 60 per cent of the dairy cows (much the same proportion as here) and bull selection has reached very much the same stage as in our own A1 movement. There was keen interest in breeding in what we would describe as strictly commercial herds for not only was ‘a nominated service’ the rule, or nearly always so, but herd owners spent much time choosing their A1 sires, and frequently made use of a number of A1 organizations if one did not have a bull to their liking. They were well versed on what was available across the continent and across the Canadian border in the famous breeding herds of Ontario. As here, they understood that the first condition of success in milk production was a good cow-the bigger the better, and the black and white Holstein-Friesian to us-dominated the scene across the contin- ent. The importance herd owners attached to

106 Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, VoI. 23, No. 2, 1970

TABLE 3 Crops raised, 1967

Crops I Acres I Yieldlacre I Production

Corn for grain 70 55 cwt. 192 tons Corn for silage 17.8 tons 890 tons Oats 1 1; I 23 cwt. I 23 tons Hay I30 3.8 tons 490 tons

Total I 270 I 1 - Source: United States Department of Agriculture. identification and recording of their cattle ensured that they could check on their decisions in selection of breeding animals.

Feeding The North American philosophy in dairy cow feeding is to be generous, which in our terms is, no doubt, lavish. It is impossible to make compari- sons with our own feeding regimes which depend so much on grazing, but the amount of forage brought to the cow in the stall was double that in this country, and the concentrate supplement about half as much again. The high yield per cow concept so strongly entrenched over there implies generous feeding. Whereas in the great majority of herds the concentrates are specially fed in the parlour or stanchion, each cow dealt with separately, we saw grain being included in the group feeding ration along with maize silage and haylage-to us some- thing bordering on super extravagance, but to them a method of saving expensive labour and possibly an insurance against weaknesses elsewhere. It was perhaps the quality of this conserved forage even more than the quantity that impressed us-hay, haylage, and maize silage. We have the best grass in the world bar New Zealand and Holland, but there are still formidable problems in its conser- vation that adversely affect its quality as a feed. The climate in North America makes it imperative that their fodder conservation arrangements are good for it necessitates anything up to 10 months feed compared with five to six months here. The figures for the cropping of a New York farm we visited are shown in Table 3.

There is no mention of grazing acreage here but when we studied statistics covering large areas of specialist dairying in New York and the mid west we noticed that pasture as such accounted for not more than 5 per cent of the total compared with 62 per cent in England and Wales and 78 per cent in the western half of this country.

Herd owners agreed that they had a cow of high yield potential and that they went on logically to make the fullest use of it. The fact that herd units were getting bigger did not change this reasoning for they were satisfied that n o matter how big the herds, yields must rise; in fact the Californian method of dairying with very large herds was reaching out to 1,500 to 2,000 gal/cow (Table 1). In

this country too where we have other measures of performance than yield/cow, which take into account stocking rates (an unheard of term there), we have detected no inverse correlation between milk yield and size of herd. Their tendency to extend zero grazing is their way of ensuring feed quantity and quality. Our answer must be in controlled grazing and efficient grass silage and haymaking.

Management Management is the key to the whole business, particularly with largish herds. Management how- ever is a very diverse subject and not easily sum- marized. If it can be defined as the art of bringing together all the inputs to maximize output it is a factor much written about in North America by all those connected with extension work, particularly among large dairy units. There was a strong Farm Management Department in the universities we visited, and men like Cunningham, Hoglund, Spiecher, and many others have for many years written well on management and 1 would like to mention how impressed I was with these men and with the work they were doing. We talked at length with these experts and I think perhaps this is the place to mention the contribution that these university departments are making to the industry. It is well known that the Extension Force (the NAAS here) is based in North America on the universities, and during our contacts with them and their personnel we became at first interested, then impressed with the personal closeness of these men to dairy farming and to dairy farmers and their problems. In large herds where management claims anything from half to all of the owners’ time, this factor is not neglected any more than it is neglected in American industry, for combined with an inborn skill or ‘know-how’, particularly in handling mechanical things, it is the basis of the American farm scene-a scene where the apparent ruthlessness of American business methods is tempered by the ever present family basis of the unit.

Summary To sum up the North American scene as it appears to a British visitor (and inevitably he must be handi- capped by the vastness of the country which allows for fleeting impressions at best), the net effect is one of stimulation which lasts well beyond the return to these shores, and the short interval which it takes to get one’s breath back. The dairy farmers’ problems over there however are strikingly similar to our own where the pressures of economic factors make for bigger and bigger herd units. The labour problem is uppermost both in North America and here. There, it has always been so, here it is more recent, and because American farmers have lived with it longer maybe we have something to learn from them. This quickening pace of change to

Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, Vol. 23, No, 2, 1970 107

larger herds has been met in both countries by expansion of output and this has been done not so much as a result of using more land or more labour, but by increasing the application of capital, and more especially by using better animals, better fodder, better techniques, and above all better management. In other words it is substantially the qualitative rather than the quantitative aspect that has been the over-riding force. These producer reactions are gradual in their effect and therefore in the future it is reasonable to expect the change to continue as now-more rapid no doubt, but not dramatic. Both in the traditional dairying areas of North America and here this seems to be the pattern of events.

Finally we were as one in confidence in our home industry; what we saw in North America certainly did not for a moment give us any sense of inferiority and comparisons with this country were by no means one-sided. The milk industry here has made rapid strides in all fields, not least in milk produc- tion techniques, and this has been accomplished against a background of a lower, smaller rise in prices for our product than has been the case in either the United States or Canada.

BOOK REVIEW Dairy Effluents. Report by the Dairy Effluents Sub-

committee of the Milk and Milk Products Technical Advisory Committee, 1969. 71 pp. Price: 7s. London: HMSO.

In the preface to this report the Dairy Effluents Sub-committee defines its main terms of reference and explains the necessary areas of associated study. The comprehensive scope and context of the report can be clearly seen from the following preface summary, which shows the main examinations and considerations involved :-

(a) The powers of the river authorities and local authorities to impose standards and charges for effluents with particular reference to the varying requirements for dairies.

(b) The extent of the resultant financial burdens on dairies showing the uniformity of charges levied by local authorities for sewer discharge and the costs of disposal treatment at the dairy.

(c) The problems arising from dairies negotiating with individual authorities, making reference to the need for adequate sampling and uniform testing in effluent assessment.

(d) The reduction of effluent problems by the prevention of waste and by good management.

(e) The pre-treatment of effluent before discharge or untreated disposal.

(f) The complete treatment of effluent by disposal plants or surface irrigation.

To obtain working information the Sub-Com- mittee prepared a very detailed questionnaire which

was sent to 1,075 dairies, and held considerable consultation with both river and local authorities. Of the 1,075 questionnaires sent out, 384 returns were received from dairies which together accoun- ted for slightly less than 60 ”/, of the total ex-farm milk supplies; a poor response from an industry which should of necessity be concerned with its effluent problems.

The report itself is a very good document, especially if considered as a survey of the present position, although it can be criticized as being less than comprehensive when anticipating the future. Its format is excellent and i t can readily be reviewed by the following references to its individual chapters which neatly coincide with relevant topics.

Dairy effluents and the law The legislative history and current regulations are well reviewed and show the statutory responsi- bilities of the dairyman under which he can only discharge effluent with the consent of either the local authority or river authority, both of whom can impose conditions. However, although the regu- lations are well quoted in this and succeeding chapters, and in the model forms shown as an Appendix, the report does not appear to emphasize sufficiently their possible future implications, par- ticularly in respect of discharge to sewers. The discretionary powers of all local authorities to impose conditions either are or will be considerable, and will, for example, allow them to levy charges on all accepted effluent, in certain caseslimit thc periods of discharge, exclude specific constituents such as condensing water, and demand information about the volume and composition of effluents. If fully implemented these powers could impose heavy burdens on the dairy by making necessary the provision of pre-treatment, balancing and effluent monitoring facilities.

Effluent control In this section the report discusses the factors con- tributing to the nature and volume of dairy effluent and shows by extremely useful tables the effect of excessive milk and milk product wastage. Methods of assessing, and then reducing, dairy wastage are discussed and the point is made that such reduction has the dual effect of improving yields and reducing effluent loads. Methods by which effluent can be monitored are also discussed and the need for effective volume measurement and representative sampling is quite correctly emphasized. There is however, much less information about assessing the characteristics of an effluent, and it is felt that an appendix giving a comprehensive review of analyti- cal methods would have been of value. The importance of water conservation and its effect on effluent volume is fully discussed, as is the need for care when discharging rinse water of high tem- perature or unacceptable pH.

108 Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1970