I recently had a chance to speak at a Farm Bureau conference at the Dells, and I got to share my theory on sustainability. I also learned a lot. I learned that sustainability means many different things to different people. Farmers out there are working to continually improve their soil, and to make their businesses better. In this economy, sustainability can mean getting more with less.
To me, sustainability is social, environmental, and economic. Environmentally, we’re constantly improving our farm. We’ve created containment systems that improve our water flow and water quality, and we’ve built retention basins to release water at a slower rate. Up at the Highland Dairy, one of our four farms, we revamped all our lighting to give better quality light to our workers and animals, and we’ve achieved 46% in kilowatt savings. And of course, we’re constantly working with the DNR to ensure that we continue to meet sustainability requirements.
Our Highland Dairy
Socially, we’ve been able to validate our high-quality animal care program by working with Validus, a third party animal welfare organization. It’s great to have that validation behind us, and to be constantly open to other people’s input about how to continually make things better. We’re also involved with local boards, and we sponsor important causes such as my friend TJ’s Race Against Breast Cancer season.
Economically, we know that we are contributing to the well-being of our community. We feel good about the fact that our milk goes just seven or eight miles down the road to be processed and turned into cheese. That means jobs in our local community. When we need help on our farm we hire locally, in fact, about 80% of our money is spent within a small radius of our farm.
We hired local workers and companies to complete an addition to our Highland Dairy location
At the end of the day, being open to new ideas is really what it’s all about. We’re always asking for other people’s expert advice on how we can make our farm even better. Sustainability means taking the long view, because we want to be here for many generations to come.
Everything we do is to ensure our farm will be sustainable for the future
