“Busy Woman” blogger tours a modern dairy and leaves with a fresh perspective

Browsing blogs to see what people are saying about modern dairy farming and production agriculture can be discouraging because, like it or not, both sides of the fence are out there. It was nice to see a health and wellness blogger recently take an open-minded approach to learning more about what we do and realizing there is a lot to learn.

Eliz Greene is a blogger from Milwaukee, Wis. Her "Busy Woman's Guide" blog and website focuses on strategies to live longer, feel better, and stress less. According to her website, she writes one of the top 100 health and wellness blogs. Greene suffered a heart attack when she was 7 months pregnant with twins. After open-heart surgery and a Caesarian delivery of twin daughters in the same day, she now is a national spokesperson for the American Heart Association, a mother, and professional speaker.

Greene visited a western Wisconsin dairy recently which was home to 800 cows. She admits in her blog that she previously only had the media’s view of “factory farming.” Greene was impressed with just how happy the cows looked — especially when they used the mechanical back scratcher. She also talks about the “soul” that goes into our family farms. After her visit, she is open to learning more about what modern farming is really like. In her blog post, she asks for even more information from farmers about their job and food production. We’d like to thank Eliz for taking time to learn more about our job and seeking out good information in her quest of living a healthier lifestyle.

Do you know of any other bloggers with a non farm background that are learning more about how their food is produced? Comment below; we would love to hear about it.

Organic and robotic

It’s not a typical combination — organic and robotic, that is. But it is the defining characteristics of Village Edge Farms in Nelson, Wis. where organic is high-tech, too. Located along the Mississippi River in west central Wisconsin, the farm is operated by brothers Greg and Dennis Hetrick. Greg says they became interested in robots because they were “tired of milking cows.”

Just last week, we visited Village Edge Farms as part of a bus tour organized by Lely of farms using robotic milking in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Village Edge installed one robot in January of 2009 and one in April of 2009. Though most farmers at each tour stop conceded that the first few days of the robotic setup were challenging for cow training, and nutrition can be a delicate balance when you are offering a high-energy pellet to entice cows into the unit, “I know my cows better now than before,” Greg Hetrick says. The transition allowed Hetrick to get to know cows not just by their udder through a small view in their old parlor. Hetrick now spends more time working closely with individual cows because of the overwhelming amount of information the robotic units tell you about each cow’s health and performance. Milk weights, each quarter’s conductivity, and even the weight of each cow is recorded every time they are milked. The next challenge for the farm: combining robotic cow flow with summer organic grazing. Greg Hetrick is shown in the photo at right sharing with other producers on the tour about his experiences.