Grazing success on a large scale

Jordan Settlage has found creative ways to make it work

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

St. Mary’s, Ohio — A decade ago Jordan Settlage started a dairy with seven cows. Today he’s milking 350 head on 400 acres with 270-300 days on pasture each year. Grazing has been key to profitability every step of the way.

Even back in elementary school, Jordan was sure that he wanted to be a dairy farmer. His father, John, grew up milking cows and wanted to make sure his son knew what he was getting into, so Jordan started helping out on a neighbor’s conventional dairy when he was 14.

He worked off and on at the dairy for a dozen years with a few years away for an Army tour of Iraq and college, and it confirmed for him that he wanted to milk cows and that he didn’t want to do it in confinement.

So Jordan dove into creating a grass dairy. He had a leg up, since there was a family farm to come home to and some existing infrastructure — his grandpa and uncle had milked until the late 80s on this farm before John took over the farm and did crops and pastured livestock.

The 1986-built milking parlor was still there, although the equipment had been gutted and sold. For just under $50,000, Jordan, with help from John, made the parlor usable again, including pouring the deck higher since the pit was too shallow.

November 8, 2024

Processor values grassfed demand

Nordik Meats finds success serving a variety of alternative meat producers

By Joel McNair

Viroqua, Wisconsin — “If there was no such thing as grassfed beef,” says Joel Morrison, “We wouldn’t be as successful as we are.”

Lots of grass farmers might make such a statement, but Joel is not one of them. Instead he is the general manager for Nordik Meats, an unusual meat processor with an uncommon ownership structure that produces some interesting end products in addition to the usual sides, quarters, and retail cuts.

Beef tallow, pork lard, bone broth — these and other products often associated with micro-processing ventures are a growing part of Nordik Meats, a USDA-inspected plant with 25 employees serving a handful of grassfed/alternative meat marketing organizations in addition to much smaller producers having processing done for their own consumption and direct-market sales.

Certainly the traditional cuts account for the bulk of Nordik’s business. Grassfed beef and lamb, plus pastured pigs, are by no means everything the plant does: Joel says that grassfed accounts for roughly half of the total volume here.

But Joel sees grassfed meats and the associated added-value products as important to Nordik’s future as “cornerstone” customers such as 99 Counties (Graze January 2023) and Wisconsin Meadows innovate and grow, and smaller, often direct-to-market ventures tap rising interest in grass-finished, organic, and local meats.

September 30, 2024

Bringing a new generation into dairy

MacKenzie Wallace finds a place on 156-year-old grazing farm

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Whitingham, Vermont — MacKenzie Wallace knew he wanted to make a career in the grazing dairy world. He also knew it would be a challenge since there was no family farm to work into.

A few turns in the road later, this young Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) graduate is working with seasoned dairy grazier Leon Corse in south-central Vermont (Graze April 2020) where he completed his apprenticeship in 2021.

When MacKenzie first came back as hired labor earlier this year, he started taking on more management decisions. He is now being transitioned into the operation more fully.

They’re both optimistic about the future.

Getting into dairy

MacKenzie didn’t grow up on a farm, but he gravitated toward agriculture nonetheless.

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024

Finding opportunities in obstacles

From low milk prices to 100% raw sales with the CSA model

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Alfred Station, New York — After four decades of dairying, hauling costs and low milk prices made shipping grassfed organic milk unsustainable for the Snyders. Sometimes the milk check hardly covered the electric bill.

For Kelby and Kristina and Kelby’s father Jerry, there were two choices: stop dairying or massively scale raw milk sales.

The odds looked stacked against the raw milk option. The farm isn’t in a densely populated or wealthy area, New York regulations only permit on-farm sales, and current raw milk customers were relatively few. It was going to take some serious creativity to make a go of it.

In the face of the unknowns, the family took a leap of faith and gave notice to their milk buyer in November 2022. The milk truck came for the last time on April 29, 2023.

CSAs were the ticket

Existing raw milk sales were consistently 30-50 gallons a week. The 45-cow herd milked once a day was producing about 500 gallons weekly, so the Snyders needed to make ten times the current sales. A tall order, but they believed the demand would be there and therefore didn’t scale down the cow herd.

May 1, 2024

Starting a grass dairy in corn and hog country

Love of grazing led to launch of new venture

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Paullina, Iowa – Torray and Erin Wilson lost their organic route before they could even start dairying, but that didn’t stop them.

The couple persisted past many other bumps in the road, and today milk 120 organic, fall-seasonal cows in northwestern Iowa. The dairy fits well into the familyís farm system as a whole, and creativity has made it sustainable.

For decades the farm had been a 600-acre grain and 300-litter farrow-to-finish outdoor hog operation. It was fully certified organic in 2011.

The family decreased the hogs to 40 litters a year in 2002 and continued selling hogs to Niman Ranch. They did some ewe and cow/calf custom grazing, but were looking for a ruminant venture with higher profit potential and organic premiums. This venture was needed to utilize the forage produced in the organic crop rotation and possibly walk some grain off the farm, too.

That desire started the ball rolling toward dairy, even though it’s a major counter-cultural move to establish a new grazing dairy and seed pastures in a place surrounded by hog CAFOs, 5,000-cow dairies, and row crop ground selling for $14,000-$20,000/acre.

January 31, 2024

A grassfed dairy dream come true

Bachmans making good progress on expensive land

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Rittman, Ohio — In this day when a lot of people have given up on the idea, Greg Bachman might offer inspiration to those who want to start dairy farming without access to a family farm or lots of money.

Greg didn’t grow up on a dairy farm. But early on he decided he wanted to dairy as he watched his grandfather and then his uncle milk cows on a small farm that was eventually certified organic.

He thought the barn door might be closed when his uncle retired and sold the property. Yet even without access to a family farm, and in the face of high-dollar land — prices are $15,000 to $20,000/acre these days in this populated area of Ohio — Greg didn’t give up on his dairy dream.

Four years of employment in the construction business confirmed to Greg that working for someone else wasn’t a good fit for his personality.