MSU Extension Animal Agriculture

So our four panelists, I'm just going to have you introduce yourselves, make some opening comments about smart manure or nutrient utilization on your farms or your businesses, how you handle that, what do you do with it? Obviously it's a resource that we all can utilize. It's very valuable. So talk a little bit about on your operations, how you do that, and then we'll get into some question and answer and the audience, make sure you come up with some questions as well, because this is a participation process and we'll be pulling you into this as well. So I'm not sure who wants to go first. Maybe we'll start right here on the end and make our way down the panel. - Yeah, I'm Dan Vannette from Schaendorf Custom Farming John Shane and Dairy. We've got a couple different dairy sites, beef operation, bottle a couple gallons of milk here and there. (indistinct) 80 some tankers on the road. John started in '94 with city cows and no employee, well, part-time employees still there today. And today we're, I think, a little over 200 employees. So a lot of growth, a lot of growing pains through that. As the dairies have grown, as our manure practices have grown, probably the biggest thing that I would say there that's helped us is our culture, the culture of caring. That might sound a little cliche, but we really try very hard to hire people with a passion for agriculture 'cause if that passion's not there, chances are real high that they're not going to do a good job. So, you know, the guys that are here with me today, I'd say each one of 'em has a passion for what they do. They want to do it. And then having a plan for every gallon, every acre that every acre that we can cover, we do cover and utilize every bit of that nutrient that we can and treating it as a nutrient. We've tried real hard to drop the shit slogans out. We kind of joke. It's a nutrient until it's on your face. Something else. But just treating it that way and being professional in what we do. Image cleanliness goes a long ways too. Perception is reality and when it comes to dealing with the public and trying to maintain that good image, - Kristi. - So I'm Kristi Keilen, my husband and I farm not too far from here. We milk, now we milk 240 cows on (indistinct) robots and we kind of take the approach on our farm as we want to be very proactive instead of reactive. So we are part of the meat program. We were part of that as kind of an early adapter to that and all the different systems we can be and we keep up on that side of it. For us it's kind of an image thing as well. We have an on-farm store where we sell beef and things like that as well. So we really want to kind of be that neighbor friendly, just kind of make sure we're doing things the right way and looking good to the public. So that's kind of our smart utilization as we're just really looking out for, you know, the whole community in general, the next generation of farmers and that sort of thing. - Well, here in farm services (indistinct) we've been in it 20 years now. We've grown with the dairies that we service. We are, we do a couple of manure hauling and harvesting. (indistinct) I guess I agree with Dan and the way we run our business. We try to hire people with a passion for ag and try to take care of employees. And just like I heard earlier from the WD, I mean, I really appreciated that, that you guys say you try to take care of your employees and try to make (indistinct) and I try to do that and the whole time I've been in the business and we try to, I mean the smart utilization, I agree with Dan again. I mean, me and Dan came into this business close to the same time and we met each other on a trip to Wisconsin Manure conference with Charles in a van. So (laughs) (indistinct) But I mean, we've been in these meetings a lot and what I believe too is be professional. I agree, that shit is not the word you use. I hate that when (indistinct) are calling me and say, we (indistinct) shit more. That's not smart, that's not professional. That's not the way it should be. And so yeah, try to do a professional job and try to stay clean. We have accidents, we have spilled, felt unhappy, but try to be professional. - Speak louder for that, now. - I'm Joe Dykhuis I'm the second generation leader in my family's fair to finish hog operation in West Michigan. There's lots of things to say about manure. I guess I agree with a lot of the comments and many of the presenters today and appreciate everyone's willingness to share. But one of the things that's just really important to me and what we work on and overarching on our farm is how, how can we be sustainable with our entire operation? So utilizing manure from the animals that we have, which we have 17,000 sows and grow half a million pigs a year, there's a lot of manure created, there's a lot of value potential there if we manage it right and if we have the right, we have the right land and the right application technologies and the right locations, all the right crop rotations, all those things, there's lots of things that we work on that are 10 and 20 year, have a 10 or 20 year timeframe of implementation, maybe even. But if you're thinking about the long game, you can do some things that don't pencil out short term. And then a lot of those investments we've actually seen work a lot better short term than what we had expected. So some of the big things for us have been, we have, and last year we talked about our pipeline. We have pipelines to transfer manure on. Huge game changer for us is irrigating. We irrigate like 16 million gallons of manure a year on about 700-ish acres through pivots. That's getting it on at the right time. It spreads out how many gallons we're spreading across the whole year. We kind of hate raising wheat, but we raised some wheat, so we have a good outlet for cover crops in many more in the summer. We've actually spread manure, we spread manure in the spring if conditions are allowed on top of wheat in instead of commercial nitrogen, that's actually worked really good when we can get it on. Just lots of different things. We've purchased land in the areas we haven't been in before, a bunch of different things like that. I think that's probably where I'll stop for now. - Very good. Appreciate the insight for all of you. You know, we certainly look at nutrient management a lot different than we, than we ever have. And we all can think back to the story. I forget which one of the speakers said were the dad spread the manure on the same field for however many years, and that's how it used to be. But along the way though, we run into challenges. So for all of you, what do you see as your biggest challenges in this area? And you can all volunteer to go whenever you want. - So one, so there's, this is kind of a two-pronged problem. One, there's lots of regulations and lots of pressure from different places on regulations and it can be hard to be sure you're in compliance all the time, even when you're trying to be compliant all the time. And then secondly, the, the regulation environment and mindset. We spend so much time making sure that we're within the regulations, that it ties up a whole bunch of time we don't have to talk about what is the best way to do this. If I, you know, throw regulations out the window, maybe I should go above and beyond. But if there's a regulation, if we meet that we tend to want to stop there because well, we've met our obligation there and we've got to go work on this. So the the regulation environment I think is, it's a shame to have a cloud over over the innovation that could be made. And that's partially farmer mindset that needs to change. Regulation's going to be there. We live with that because of bad situations that have happened and some people need it. But that's one of my frustrations and challenges in the whole manure complex. I'll echo what Joe said. That's definitely the biggest challenge for us. Overreaching regulations that frankly I would say don't solve anything. I've asked the question numerous times to regulators with the, how many of the spills that you've had in the last year were within compliance of current regulations. No one has ever answered that question. With anyone, I would challenge it's zero. So, you know, these regulations that they keep putting on us, always wondering what the next thing is. Not even knowing what our permit is, KFO permit's going to look like in 2025. How do we plan, you talk about 10 year plans, 20 year plans, it's hard to invest in different technologies and processes. We don't even know if it's going to be allowed at any given time. So I would definitely second that. - So I would say there's two big things, and I'm going to kind of echo what these guys said. Even as a small farm, we don't have near as much manure as you guys have, but being kind of self-regulatory in our neck of the woods, it's the same. I don't have enough people to just handle all the paperwork, manure paperwork. And then on top of that, as a dairy farm, you have also things like the farm certification and all these other things you have to do, right? So managing all these different regulatory paperworks that don't all talk nicely to each other, but maybe you're doing the same thing three or four times over. That's difficult, right? I could probably hire a full-time person just to do that. The second thing I'm going to say is kind of in our neck of the woods is it's going to be the next generation not understanding manure, right? Like grandpa understood why we put manure on, what the smell's from. The next generation, whether it be the people moving into the farmhouse that's next to one of your fields, whether it be a land owner who is taking it over after grandma died or something. These guys don't understand manure. So kind of getting them to understand what, you know, this product we have, what it's for, what we're doing with it is very important because they just don't understand. - And I'll say too, the regulations on the custom side, we all have farms too, from the custom side is regulations. I mean, for 20 years they've been talking more and more about regulating, especially custom haulers. And I've sat in meetings with Eagle and don't think that they are not trying, they are trying to license them. That's why this organization is here to try to do voluntary regulation, you know, in case the state ever comes down, we are started on it and they might say, okay, you're doing a good job. You know, and from the custom side, for me it's keeping up with what the dairies are going to do. It used to be, oh, we're going to add 300 cow. Now it's, we just bought a 5,000 cow dairy, you know, to keep up with it. That's the hard one for us. - I'd like to add one thing. You know, while I've got a bit of a captive audience. We need to work as an industry to promote ourselves positively. And whenever we're given the opportunity to talk about regulations to make our voice known. Many of us here are part of CAFOs or are CAFO, get involved if you're not already in the, the ongoing litigation that Farm Bureau has headed up. Show up at the court hearings. There were a few of us that went to the Supreme Court hearing a couple weeks ago in Lansing for that. And the justices noted how many people were on our side. Thankfully a bunch of Eagle people sat on our side. So they got counted. But just to be positive and represent our industry well and when those regulators show up, let's, my experience has often been that they've been combative. They come in thinking that we are trying to hide everything from 'em. And I've tried to have an open book and then be just kill 'em with kindness even though you just want to, you know, maybe do the third part. But, let's be professional throughout and learn the languages, learn the regulations as best we can so we can speak intelligently when that time comes. - The questions from the audience. Don't be shy. - [Audience Member] We've attended, I mean if you haven't noticed, we're from Ohio, we've attended a lot of those (indistinct) meetings and this is a topic that I keep hearing. So does Farm Bureau have like an ag day at the capitol where you can share your story and give examples and have that interaction with legislator? And I'm learning that this is not an ag friendly state as much as ag is here. - You want me to take that one or... Kristi, go ahead. From a member standpoint- - We do, we have, we have exactly what you're talking coming up, Lansing legislative, and so yeah, kind what you said, definitely get involved in these things. Talk to your legislator, bring your legislators out to the farm, Farm Bureau is really helpful at that. Have 'em ride along in the combine in the manure tanker. Show them what you guys are doing because if they understand once again, you know what the goal is behind this, you know, maybe they'll be a better, better advocate for us. - Yeah, there's not anything producers in Ohio are doing that are anything different than what we're doing here in Michigan. There's lots of farms that have positive interaction at interactions as well. Our legislative process is a little different than Ohio and that's, that makes for some, some big contentious issues. But for the most part, you know, someone had a picture of my burning manure tanker on the side of the road there that Mike EQ guy actually called me and told me about because I didn't even know that was on the internet. So you can have positive, positive interactions and we get along really well with our local municipalities and neighbors. I mean, we farm around hundreds of houses and have very few complaints. There's lots of people that live around Michigan CAFOs is my experience (indistinct) side of the state. And so it's actually mostly positive, just people with authority have a little different view on us than maybe in surround other surrounding states, - You know, relative to that. And Kristi, thanks for answering that question. You know, the involvement issue in these type of discussions and topics, you know, the world is run by those who show up and if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. It's a pretty simple way of putting it. And you all can tell your story better than anybody else. You heard about that in the last session. But you got to be involved. Somebody else will make up the rules and regulations for you if you don't get involved Make them make the right programs for yourself or make the right decisions for yourself. And that's why there are organizations like Farm Bureau where we can all work together collectively to solve problems. So thanks for the advertisement, appreciate that. You all are great at what you do. Okay, but from time to time you've got questions that need to be answered. Who are your trusted advisors and where do you go to get those answers? Okay, because this issue constantly changes and evolves, not just from a nutrient management standpoint, but from a regulatory standpoint and a wide variety of issues. So who are your trusted advisors? The people you go to for knowledge? - I guess I'll start that. We use a consultant, CJD Consulting. I think there's other great consulting firms out there, but because they're up to date on the problems that many other farms are facing throughout the state, they're great help as was mentioned with you guys have all heard of PNAAW, Professional Nutrient Applicators Association of Wisconsin. Eric didn't know that. So nobody else has, apparently. - They have now. - We encourage you to go see what your states are. There's a lot of states that go there. We've learned a lot of different things talking to people from other states, what do you guys have in Ohio? So we don't have here different issues, staying ahead of those things. So I find our consultants to be very helpful. - So I'm a little different in that aspect. We're not large enough to have a consultant, but I tend to reach out to, I guess if we want to call the enemies. But if I have a question, I will call up USDA, I will call up the local meat person that I work with and just ask them the question. Yes, they regulate me, but I want to hear it from their mouth on what they're going to look for, right? If they're going to come out to me, I want to know, you know, directly from them what I should be doing the right way. So I kind of directly reach out to the people that are going to be the ones regulating us. And that might just be our size, but that's kind of (indistinct). - Networking (indistinct) and contact them, see if they've ever ran into the problem or not. And dealers, reps or companies where we reach out to. - Yeah, this was an interesting teaser question to think about. We in the rest of our business, I could write a list a mile long of people who are available to work on different issues. The manure world isn't quite so deep with the advisory panel. So our, we have several CAFOs, so our CAFO consultant certainly is one of 'em because they have to be, the team at (indistinct) has always been very helpful for us on a number of issues. Then this certification program and these meetings actually have been a big help in my opinion as well. It helps attract more people than just the leaders on the teams. And it provides a gathering of people who work with manure and are willing to talk about it in Michigan that I don't think really existed before. So I think there's more room for some of that. A lot of the other stuff, it's a little hard to know who to talk to, especially as you get to some advanced technologies and new equipment and stuff, man, everything is so expensive nowadays that you'd like to have a whole list of reputable, you know, a lot of people you could call to see different opinions on things before you bought 'em. That's a challenge I think for me. Yeah, to know that. - Joe, you talked about technologies. Innovation is always happening. So where do you see for all of you, what do you see as the next innovation or new tool that's needed for nutrient management? - Great question. So we, in my specific situation over the last couple years, we've actually been trying to add quite a few technologies on. So we're tracking, we've got Samsara on our whole fleet too, that's farm tractors, trailers, I think we have 222 assets on there. So we kind of know everything that's going on all the time. We've got several different automated measuring systems for pressures or pit levels, a bunch of different things. We have more information on agronomics than you could dream of. I think I'm kind of at the point where I almost don't want any more new technology right now. I need some time to utilize all of the stuff that I already have. So, but probably the biggest answer to your question would be some sort of additional artificial intelligence that helps us actually get the nuggets out of this data that we're collecting. And if you're collecting data on things about how your farm operates, I do believe there's going to be AI that comes out that will help us know, okay, here's, here's how many total miles of this type of activity you have and this really should be, this really would be your payback if you instituted and here's the difference between, you know, eight axle and six axle trailers. All these different things that we don't really pay attention to or you know, a 40 mile round trip costs this much more than another, you know, a different, all of, I think lots of answers to those things are available if we have the data track and if we have AI to help us sort it out. - So I'm going to be quite a bit different from you guys being such a small farm. We have two tankers and I have two old guys that drive 'em. So there is a realm of technology things that I could implement at any point in time. The gentleman that was talking about the harvest lab and how that's integrated into like the tankers, that was interesting for me. You know, I can use the, utilize it both on the dairy side, maybe make a little money on taking some samples from the field on our silages, but then I can also utilize it on the existing tankers that we already have. So something like that was interesting. Maybe trying to utilize a little more technology than the pencil paper Excel sheet that kind of my old guys are using to put all the manure records together. That's probably something maybe I'll have to utilize in the next generation but it'll be something upcoming for us I think as well. - For us too, it's a little different. We hustle, we travel all over and you know, we're always looking at new technology and the equipment side, mapping and stuff for the manure I think is good. It's not everybody's wanting it. Some of the dairies don't want that. And so on the custom side it's kind of, you got to listen to your customers, what do they want? And that sometimes pushes you to where you go. Also, it's not, and you, if you got to put all this equipment on your machinery, it costs a lot and are you going to get anything back out of it? Are you just going to print 'em a pretty picture or are they going to utilize it? I think that's, you know, technology, I mean I think anything you can do to (indistinct) some of the paperwork. We've been trying to find different systems to do that so there's not so many paperwork to keep track. So- - No, I'm just kidding. I'll just echo what they said. I mean, data is absolutely worthless to you if you don't do anything with it. And we have just such an amount of data available to us from the equipment that we run. There's so many other things we could bolt on and it all costs money, but you know, we're not running the harvest lab yet, but flow meters, adding those to our manure tankers with the Raven Controller has been just a wonderful game changer from multiple different aspects. Simple things of getting away from paper and using Google Docs or we use a a another one now, but has been very, very helpful to just export to a spreadsheet now with that spreadsheet. There's a lot that I can do with that, but there's way more information than we can process. So I agree with Joe. I think the AI is a very fascinating area that I look for. We have it on our dairies now. Cameras in the barns watching for abuse. AI software monitors that. It's very expensive but it's also very effective. So yeah. Lasers. - Any other questions from the audience? - Yes, sir. - I remember the day seeing in a farm magazine that the first farmer in America on a farm field got over 200 bushels of corn on a farm field. Today it's regular to go with 400. We're talking about manure utilization. Tell us how does that happen? - For us, I guess one of the biggest compliments we ever got, I feel was dairy that we went through. They always hauled their own. We just pumped it out, grouped us out and away they went. We came in with agitation boats did what? It took them probably two, three weeks to do what we did in three days. And they saw a consistency across their crop that next growing season. They saw their corn yields go up because it was consistent manure spread at good agronomic rates and their pit was done quick. And so I believe that's a lot what you see now. We're utilizing the mode better. - I'm going to echo that too and say we're also utilizing the nutrients better when we take the manure sample and we take the soil sample and we take the gallons that are put on at a consistent rate, knowing all of that and then what we may be short in and then adding in if we need something else to build that back up in the soil. Kind of all that combined together I think is what's, you know, utilizing that. - I would say soil health. So using manure cropping systems, cover crops, hitting good time windows for soil conditions when you're applying manure. All of those things can really help boost yields overall. A huge chunk of the genetic potential or of what you're talking about in advancement has come from crop genetics. And I think the next thing that can help a lot is actually knowing much better when the crop needs what nutrients and in what forms and what ways and how do we get, how do we get the soil actually to hold that and make that available. And all signs, in my opinion, lead toward manure being one of the best solutions for building your overall soil health to keep building that. And then another thing we've been seeing as a side effect from building that soil health is the soil structure is so much better that when you do need to go do those critical time operations in the field, you have bigger windows because you're not cutting in. or you dry out quicker or there's all sorts of it. Like that success helps you build on that success and manure's just a critical advantage I think over, over acres that can't get it. - Very good. Well, we're about out of time, but the one thing that we've learned here, the last, you know, 30 minutes or so, and one thing we knew before we came in is that this industry is constantly changing. We can all learn from each other. So thank you all for sharing your knowledge and expertise and we're going to continue to need to learn to change and adapt to utilize these nutrients in a way that they best meet our cropping needs so that we can continue to produce products for our consumers. So thank you all. Let's give our panelists a round of applause and thank them for the reference. (pleasant upbeat music)