By Tamara Scully, NODPA News contributing writer
Joe and John Engelbert
At Engelbert Farms, seventh generation New York farmers - brothers Joe and John Engelbert - have taken over operations from their parents, Kevin and Lisa. Unlike many such transitions, this one was harmonious. Older brother Kris, who chose not to return to the dairy permanently, continues to live nearby and help out as needed, and was onboard with the transition, too. The reasons for this successful passing of the torch? Mutual respect, reality-based financial expectations, and a heartfelt desire for the family’s dairy farming tradition to profitably continue into the future were the foundation upon which this transitional plan was built.
“It’s family first. We all want to see the farm succeed,” John said. “Our parents wanted us to take the farm in the needed direction while we were still young and ambitious.” And that’s what Joe and John have been successfully doing since 2010.
Kevin and Lisa were only in their early 50s when they opted to hand the reigns over to their sons. Kevin’s father had done the same: turn over farm operations to the next generation so they could build their own business. In the family tradition, the older generation stays on-farm, helping out as needed, and being supported by the farm. Everyone in the family benefits when the farm is successful.
After taking over from his father in 1980, Kevin realized that the chemical fertilizers and crop protectants his father had used, plus a focus on keeping productivity high, was correlated to an increase in health problems in the herd as well as costing a large amount of money in inputs. Kevin experimented with eliminating some of the chemical farming techniques and saw great results. He abruptly stopped using chemicals the next year, and things continued to improve. Eventually, he took the cows out of the barn and put them outside onto rotationally grazed pastures, further enhancing herd health.
Engelbert Farms is a pioneer in organic dairy farming: they were the first certified organic dairy in the United States. The farm became certified organic in 1984, when there were no established organic dairy standards. They sold their organic milk on the conventional market until 2001. They then joined the CROPP cooperative, and began shipping to Organic Valley, as they do today.
Joe and John worked the farm organically with their parents during their formative years. While all the boys had worked on the farm as teenagers, Joe was the one who always wanted to farm. John was senior in college in 2010, when his parents proposed the transition. He realized that he didn’t want to sit at a desk all day and returning home to continue the family organic dairy farming business was the right option.
There were no points of contention regarding the transition, John said. They didn’t need a mediator. Instead, the family worked solely with an experienced farm planner to assist with paperwork aspects of the transition.
“We get along well as brothers, and we all get along with our parents,” John said.
Their parents had added several profit streams to diversify the farm - beef, veal and pork, vegetables, a farm store, a wholesale meat and cheese business, and a grain growing and custom mixing operation- and would continue to be involved in some aspects of the farm during and after the transition. The brothers would immediately begin to manage the cows, while Kevin handled the grains, and Lisa retained operation of the farm store, which sells their own beef, veal and pork as well as local produce, dairy, and other farm products, and which she continues to run today.
Two limited liability corporations (LLCs) were formed - one with Lisa and Kevin as members and one consisting of Joe and John, with Lisa as a silent partner. This arrangement allowed them to more easily transition farm assets from one generation to the next.
Joe and John were proud of the organic status of the farm, and had no plans to change that. However, they did make some immediate changes to the dairy operation. The first decision the brothers made was to grow the dairy herd. Kevin and Lisa had a 90-100 cow milking head. But Joe and John wanted to have employees at the dairy to free them up from twice per day milking and allow them a better work-life balance with their families. The impetus to growing the dairy herd was the need to economically support hiring farm labor to assist with the milking and daily chores. Today the farm has the equivalent of five full-time non-family employees. “We tried to make it work efficiently, so it runs better, and is more profitable,” John said of their decision to expand.
Joe and John can both interchangeably do all aspects of the farm and dairy work. Joe doesn’t do the paperwork, however, and John primarily leaves the growing and harvesting of the crops to Joe. John also has taken over the breeding in the past few years. They have a full-time “fill-in” who can replace either John or Joe, doing whatever needs to be done with the cows or the fields. They also have a mechanic, an employee to assist with daily chores, and several part-time high school students who help as needed. In order to hire the labor and remain profitable, they had to double the herd size, John said. And doubling the herd size required a bigger parlor.
They built a double eight parlor in 2013. The old parlor was similar in design, but just didn’t have the room they needed for a larger milking herd, and neither did the barn. In 2014, they built a sand-bedded freestall barn for the milking herd and dry cows. They also switched from feeding baleage to using bunk silos and chopping feed. They then added a custom chopping operation, providing this service to neighboring farms.
They began to feed a small amount of grain to the milking herd, year-round. Their parents already had the grain operation, so adding grain to the milking herd’s feed made sense. They wanted to increase productivity and balance the diet precisely, which has also contributed to better reproductive rates, John said. They now use a nutritionist - another change from their parents’ management - to implement precision feeding. The milking herd receives four - five pounds of grain and 10 pounds of snaplage in the summer, with the grain increasing to 10-12 pounds in the non-grazing season.
“The diet is so precise now that if there is too much feed left over, they have less heat,” John said.
Another change was the addition of ear tag monitoring, implementing Select Sires Cow Manager® in 2020. The system is integrated with their Dairy Comp Herd Management system, allowing them to closely manage cow health and detect heats, increasing reproductive efficiency. With a smaller herd size, Kevin and Lisa were able to be more hands-on with the cows, and able to spend the day with the cows and monitor them up-close. “Joe and I are not avid cow people. We are not herdsmen,” John said.
Instead, they rely on alerts sent to their cell phones by the Cow Manager system. If a cow isn’t ruminating, or her temperature is higher than normal, they’ll be alerted by the system and can look more closely at that cow’s statistics, and make a point to observe her and catch any illness as early as possible. The system also detects heat, for better reproductive success. “It’s a great employee, 24/7,” John said.
During the 14 years since taking over the dairy, Joe and John slowly began managing more of the grain operation. Today, they have full control of the decision-making on all aspects of the farm operation, with the exception of the farm store, which remains Lisa’s domain. The store provides their parents a source of income from the farm, and boosts sales of the farm’s meats, benefitting the entire family.
The brothers farm 1800 acres of tillable land, both owned and rented. The farthest acreage is about 12 miles from the home farm. They chop 450 acres of hay, taking four cuttings per year. They also make dry hay on 400 acres, taking one cutting per year. Most fields are dedicated hay or pasture, but a few fields are used for both. About 420 acres are in pasture.
They grow 300 acres of corn and about 150 acres of soybeans each year, plus 30 acres of oats. They occasionally will plant sorghum as a rotation crop on land that won’t support soybeans. Otherwise, they follow a corn - soy - corn - alfalfa (or clover, depending on soil type) rotation. Their soils are high in organic matter, and they regularly lime and use chicken manure and focus on maintaining a balanced soil pH and optimal fertility.
All the grains fed to the cow are homegrown. They also sell their grains to other farmers in mixed rations. John has found that the row crop operation is very involved, and requires a lot of time and effort to properly manage the fertility.
Liquid manure from the milking herd’s freestall barn, along with the liquid portion of manure from the heifer barn, is stored in a concrete tank which has a three or four month capacity. This is then spread on fields as warranted, and is also applied after each cutting of hay. Solid manure from the freestall barn, where the calves and heifers are housed, is spread in the spring when planting crops. The fields further from the home farm are fertilized with chicken manure, rather than hauling manure from the cows that far down the roadways, and are used to grow alfalfa.
Pastures are primarily native grasses, with no special species being seeded. They trim pastures after every two grazing sessions, “primarily to keep weeds from going to seed,” John said. Their weed pressure is low, and they will seed over each paddock every few years. They don’t soil test often, but judge what is needed by observing what is growing in the pastures.
The cows are milked twice per day, at 5am and 4:30pm. Following each milking, they go into their freestall barn and receive a total mixed ration. The TMR consists of a custom mix of corn silage, soybeans, snaplage and grain, along with a complete mineral mix, and is adjusted as needed by their nutritionist.
The average somatic cell count is 140,000. Butterfat is about 4.2 percent, while protein is 3.1 percent. Their target for production is 48-55 pounds of milk per cow, per day on average.
After feeding, the cows are let out to graze each evening during the early May until mid-October grazing season. They don’t graze during the daytime in the summer heat. The cows are turned out into a fresh one and one-half acre paddock each day. Paddocks are permanently fenced. They don’t break down the paddocks any further with temporary fencing. Instead, the cows rotate through a fresh paddock daily, and each paddock is given a 28 -30 day rest period before being regrazed. On average, the cows receive 40 percent of their DMI from pasture during the grazing season.
The herd is primarily Holstein genetics, with some Jersey genetics in the mix. John selects for feet and legs, and well as for reproduction. They raise 50 heifers per year, raising all of their own replacement heifers. Heifers are another profit center on the farm. They quickly sell any heifers who don’t meet their standards. They also breed some of the heifers to Angus, for their beef operation, raising about 50 head for beef each year. Heifers are pastured 24/7 during the grazing season, receiving all their nutrition from grazing, and are housed in their own freestall barn during the winter.
They typically have 30 or 40 dry cows at a time, which are pastured 24/7 during the grazing season. The dry cows receive supplementation with dry hay, corn silage and mineral mix while grazing, and are housed in the new freestall barn along with the milking herd.
Calves are raised year-round. They currently are housed in individual pens until weaning at ten weeks of age. To meet Organic Valley’s standards, they may need to eliminate individual calf housing in the near future. Calves receive a calf starter grain, some TMR from the milking herd, milk from the bulk tank and some second or third cutting dry hay. They are weaned by cutting down the milk gradually over a seven to ten day period. A 50/50 milk and water mix is fed for four days, then further diluted in half for another four or five days. This reduced the stress on the calves, John said.
Calves will be pastured at six months of age during the grazing season, with some being turned out at three months, primarily to minimize the work load.
A veterinarian is used for dehorning calves and for consultation if anything unusual occurs. Otherwise, the herd is relatively healthy. Scours is the biggest challenge with calves, but they’ve begun using organic raw apple cider vinegar with “extremely noticeable” improvement, John said. Calves are vaccinated with Inforce 3® at birth.
Cows are given a multivitamin twice per year, and also receive Presponce® once per year. Mastitis is not really a concern. When it does occur, it usually is related to a stressor, such as heat stress or a ration change.
The biggest concern John sees for organic dairy farming is the pay price, which hasn’t reflected the increase in inflation during the past three years. They were lucky to expand when organic milk prices were high, and are careful not to take on any further debt when prices are low.
The expansion of the herd - and the parlor and the new barn which the expanded herd required - helped to make the dairy more efficient. That efficiency has helped Engelbert Farms during the price drop.
The diverse profit centers on the farm which their parents established have also helped position the next generation for success. They also raise about three veal calves per year for meat sales at the farm store. The veal are raised on pasture with the other calves and harvested at three or four months of age. Two dozen pigs are also raised outdoors for meat sales at the store. They have been able to utilize the grain for their own herd, and continue with grain sales to other farms. They now added custom chopping operations for local farms. Heifer sales are another ancillary income stream for the farm.
Taking over the farm from the previous generation doesn’t have to be a struggle. As the Engelberts have demonstrated, putting the needs of the farm first, and having a family in which all individuals look out for each other’s well-being, are the two key components to a smooth generational transfer.
The Engelberts realize how fortunate they are, and hope others are able to find a path to a functional transition of power to the next generation. Their family’s journey remains proof - 14 years after the fact - that farm succession can be successful.
The Engelberts can be reached at the farm: Engelbert Farms Organic, LLC, 182 Sunnyside Road, Nichols NY 13812 Email: engelbertfarmsorganic@gmail.com, Website: www.engelbertfarms.com; Facebook: Engelbert Farms Store and Creamery. To reach Lisa at the farm store: Engelbert Farms Store and Creamery, 263 W River Rd., Nichols NY 13812. Store phone: 607-699-3001, Email: kengelbert@stny.rr.com
Posted: to Featured Farms on Sat, Jul 13, 2024
Updated: Sun, Jul 14, 2024