A dairy farm in the town of Luján was completely reconverted, based on a technical management of “organic” characteristics, which ensures more sustainability and an extra income.

Oscar Kise (photo) is a farmer and technical advisor responsible for San Benito, a dairy farm based in Luján, province of Buenos Aires.

Kise’s dairy farm is close to the city, so when the first restrictions for phytosanitary applications in peri-urban areas appeared, he had no choice but to reconvert his approach.

What did he do? He moved towards organic production with certification. “With the first steps, we realized that there was an economic plus and that boosted our profitability, so we started to produce in the same way in the other two dairy farms of the company”.

Now, his three dairy farms have OIA international certification and have an agreement with Nestlé for the supply of organic milk for ten years.

According to the farmer, the first requirement for certified organic production is to avoid the use of chemically synthesized phytosanitary products (i.e. fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and fungicides), as well as hormones or genetically modified organisms. “Phytosanitary treatments are done animal by animal,” says the producer.

Another fundamental aspect is the diversity of breeds that Kise manages. In his biestacionado dairy -with two calving times during the year- there are Jersey, New Zealand Holstein and crossbreeds between both, as well as White and Red Swedish.

“We want the cows to be long-lived and have a good reproductive performance”, says San Benito’s manager. In reference to animal management, another of the fundamental pillars is welfare. “We have cows adapted to grazing, which do not have stress and are not demanding, because we are not looking for large individual productions, but moderate ones,” he says.

Kise emphasizes that the dairy has a smaller “frame” cow, with lower average liters of production, but with a higher concentration of solids (fat and protein), going from 6.5% milk to 8.4% milk.

Among the immediate objectives is to have a minimum stocking rate of one and a half cows per hectare, achieve 18 liters of milk per cow and approach 9% solids.

FEEDING

According to the farmer, the objective is to have the whole area in pasture rotation and, due to the limitation of not using any type of chemical synthesis product, the multi-species pastures, which are 100% permanent, must be as long-lived as possible.

For dairy farming, spring surpluses are essential. Since weather conditions do not allow us to make hay, we make meadow silage and with the late cuts we make rolls as a way of preserving through haymaking. They also have an external area with oats and vetch for silage or rolls, and in summer they use moha and sorghum.

For the preparation of reserves, they hire the service of “AgroGusmerini”, which has Claas equipment, equipped with a JAGUAR 960 with direct cutting head, an ORBIS 750 and the PU300 harvester.

AgroGusmerini harvests between 200 and 250 hectares per year between pastures, winter green pastures and sorghum in San Benito, under strict protocols of the dairy certifier and Senasa, which involve cleaning the organic remains to avoid contamination by transgenic and phytosanitary materials.

Agustín Gusmerini admits that having a JAGUAR gives them three great guarantees: high production capacity, reliability and a technical service on hand to solve any inconvenience quickly and slow down their work as little as possible.

Source: Infocampo