MSU Extension Animal Agriculture

Hello, Tess Van Gorder, Michigan Farm Bureau. I'll be monitoring the panels today. After all my housekeeping, my goal is to talk less, not more, because I wanted to hear from all these folks. So I think I might switch to a lapel and then have you all hand that. So, Adam, if you want to start off introductions, and tell us a little bit about yourself and your farm. - Adam Cornell, Performance Farms in Remus, Michigan. We're a 4,800 head finisher for High Lean. - Neil Taylor, I'm in southeast Michigan. We're a little bit unique for this program. We have no livestock, but we spread a lot of manure. We're a certified organic operation, so we haul in manure from Herbrucks, and Morgan Composting usually, and so we handle a lot of manure. - I'm Anthony Kammeraad, I'm the crop manager for Dykhuis Farms, which is a sow farm. We farm corn, soybeans, and wheat. And from the pigs, we have a lot of manure that we spread on our own fields. Annually we spread about 24 million gallons through our pipeline, and we do some trucking, and then we did this year 16 million gallons through the irrigation. - All right, we'll have you keep that microphone. And so all these folks are certified in the Manure Hauler Certification Program. So for the next question, why did you all decide to participate in the program? - Obviously is a good incentive for the discount on insurance, but also it's a good third party audit. I think to have them come out, and inspect the equipment, it holds us accountable, gives us good things to look for. It standardizes what we want everyone to do for our employees. Everyone knows what to look for. It holds accountability to everyone. We think it increases our efficiency, everyone on the same page. - Our motivation to get into this program was just to get ahead of regulations. All of our land drains into the Western Lake Erie Basin, so anybody familiar with that knows about the algae blooms and Lake Erie, and how all the farmers are, right or wrong, getting the blame for that. So we want to be ahead of the curve, and say we're doing everything we possibly can to apply manure in the right manner. - Ours was basically self-regulation in hopes that we stay ahead of the curve, and government doesn't step in if we're doing a adequate job of this. On a side note, the insurance deal we did, Hastings Mutual, did have a lot of losses in the last few years, so they jacked all of our rates. So we just switched the Farm Bureau, (crowd laughs) hopped in, so on a $20,000 policy, it's a 1% for being meat certified and 1% for being manure hauler certified, so it's like 400 bucks. - Awesome. And then can you guys talk about what was the process for your equipment review, and then also if there's anything you would've done differently, having been through that review, some of you a couple times now. - So basically, just make sure your repairs are up to par before obviously having someone come to audit you, but it was a low key, it's not like they're out to get you, they're there to help. So if your maintenance is up, there's not a ton to prepare for. Basically, slow moving vehicle signs, reflectors, hydraulic hoses where the issues that I had to adjust. So very minor things, but it's nice to have a second set of eyes on you. - Our equipment review has generally been pretty painless. Probably the best thing to do is make sure that everything is available, and accessible. So being back in a dark corner of the tool shed is not the ideal place to have the spreader when they show up, just so that people can, you know, get in there, see everything, and get around. So having all the equipment in one spot, and easily accessible makes the process go a lot faster. - Yeah, I emailed Tess, we set up a time, she sent a sheet to fill out with all the equipment we're going to need inspected, and stuff like last calibration done to it. Filled that out, and they came to the farm for inspection when we were spreading. So we went and looked at the site as we were loading, and then went to the field, and inspected the equipment as we were spreading, and then looked at some backup equipment that we wanted checked that was just in the yard. - Yeah, so we do have that flexibility if you're like oh I want to get this done, but I don't know about a good time. We went out, they pause spreading for a hot minute for us to look at the spreader, and then we pop back out. So really it's trying to be flexible, and fit into your all's schedule. So I know some of you have hit on some of the value you see. Is there anything else you wanted to add to the value you saw for your operations for participating in the program? - I took notes, so I have stuff here. Second set of eyes, like he said, that was key. 'Cause it's my eyes only, so it's nice to have a second set there to bring things to my attention. And basically the values I see, is just trying to keep the the bad operators from getting worse. So if they're there auditing people, and bringing up that level, then that helps all of us keep from a black eye industry. And I mean unfortunately, there still is the bad operators out there, and I wish they'd participate in these sort of things cause it's better for us to be regulating ourselves than the government doing it, so. - Yeah, I would say it just increases our responsibility, and professionalism to what we appear to neighbors, too. If we're all doing a better job to neighbors who don't necessarily know what farmers do, it just gives a better appearance to them. - Great, and then so closing comments, on anything else you would like to add, or why do you think other folks should give this sort of new program a try to participate and get certified. - Basically we have young kids that are hoping, well I got a six year old says he wants to take over the family farm, so that's my incentive to make sure they don't regulate us out of business. - I think for the most part, the program has been informational. So a lot of the content online, at least when I went through it, was geared more towards liquid, which doesn't apply to us since we're spreading just chicken litter, and manure, and compost. But it was interesting to learn so it certainly wasn't a waste of time at all. - Yeah, I would say there really aren't any disadvantages. It doesn't take that much time. There's value to be gained, benefits we've already said, so I don't see why you wouldn't. - Great. Are you guys open for a couple questions, if there's questions in the audience? - I am. - All right. Any questions for folks who've gone through? - [Audience Member] How long did it take to do the online training? - I don't, I think the classes were a couple hours. We had all our team members do it, and a couple hours each. There's a set of videos, and then questions after, like a quiz. Yeah. (light mellow music)