A Letter from Agrarian Solutions® Chief Executive Officer
Elevate Your Cattle Operations with Agrarian Solutions
Dear Valued Partner,
Thank you for your continued trust in Agrarian Solutions.
For over 25 years, we’ve dedicated ourselves to helping livestock reach their genetic potential through our innovative products and expert technical consultation. Your support inspires us to prioritize customer satisfaction and proven results.
In the ever-evolving landscape of livestock health, reproduction, and production, we understand the challenges you face in maximizing efficiency and profitability. Our extensive experience allows us to draw on past solutions while remaining adaptable to new hurdles as management practices and environmental factors change. We’re committed to understanding these challenges through ongoing feedback from our partners and their customers, which fuels our research and development.
You may be familiar with our offerings in poultry, porcine, or bovine, but we are excited to highlight our trusted product solutions for bovine operations in this issue of RISE. I want to introduce you to the Agrarian Solutions Defend & Protect Dairy Program (see on page 3), developed by our Agrarian Solutions team. This comprehensive program identifies key challenges and solutions throughout the dairy production cycle. Thank you once again for your support of Agrarian Solutions. We hope this program can help you navigate and overcome common challenges in dairy production, enhancing the lifetime health and productivity of your animals.
For more information on the Defend & Protect Dairy Program, please reach out to your Agrarian Solutions representative.
Warm regards,
Mark Carpenter Chief Executive Officer, Agrarian Solutions
Defend & Protect Dairy Program
CONVERT™ Gel/Bolus
CONVERT™ BIG Calf Powder
Ca3 BioFresh® Bolus
BioFresh® Microbial Bolus/Gel
DTX™ “We Have Mycotoxins”
BioCycle® “Life Is Good”
BioCycle® Plus “We Need Some Help”
= Use when challenging events occur = Add to the daily ration to address challenges & enhance performance
Q&A with Agrarian Solutions®
Use For Any Calf Challenge: Birth, electrolyte therapy, antibiotic therapy, offfeed periods, environmental stress, and weaning
Daily Use For Calf Challenges: Easily mixed into whole milk/replacer (Same ingredients as Convert Gel / Bolus)
Use For Calving Challenge: Decrease the presence of Hypocalcemia and improve blood calcium levels
For Any Challenge Event: Increase feed intake, re-establish microbial balance, and support immune function during challenging periods
Use Daily For Mycotoxin Challenges: Alleviate mycotoxin challenges, improve immune response, and enhance performance
Use For Production or Immune System Challenges: Enhance immune function, target pathogens, and enhance ruminal fermentation
Use For Mycotoxin or Immune System Challenges: Enhance immune function, ruminal fermentation, and performance. Also, alleviates mycotoxin challenges and targets pathogens
Scott Zehr
Regional Business Development Manager - East
Q: What is working at Agrarian Solutions like?
A: It has been and continues to be very personally fulfilling because I get to live my passion everyday and the company culture helps facilitate that as well.
Q: How would you describe Agrarian Solutions in 3 words?
A: Genuine, Dedicated, Unique
Q: What hashtags describe your personality best?
A: #hardworking #outsidethebox #easygoing #persistent #caring #genuine
Q: What is something you are passionate about outside of work?
A: Being a good husband and father and making maple syrup.
Q: What has been your favorite project at Agrarian Solutions?
A: Developing new relationships and Ruminate This.
Q: What are you enjoying most about being the host of the Ruminate This podcast?
A: The opportunity to use my ability of challenging the status quo to a larger audience, potentially making a difference for many more people.
Agrarian Solutions® Team
Mark Lantz President
Rob Hamaker Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Mark Carpenter Chief Executive Officer
Chad Christensen Regional Business Development Manager - West
Dan Hoying National Farm Program Manager
Nic Bradley Director of Operations
Scott Zehr Regional Business Development Manager - East
Cody Cline International Account Manager
Mary Taylor Administrative Assistant
Caroline Knoblock, MSc Director of Nutrition
Kelbi Veenstra Office Manager
Kelly Bristle
Community Manager
Larry Roth, Ph.D., PAS Vice President of Nutrition
Relational. Integrity. Strategic. Excellence RISE
Relational - (…we care about others)
• We always treat others the way we would want to be treated…with kindness, compassion, patience, selfcontrol, and honesty.
• We care about others for more than what they can offer the business. We care about them as individuals, their families, etc. We have a genuine curiosity for their well-being.
• We care about those with whom we interact who are not part of the Agrarian family.
• We care about the success of others…our colleagues, our distributors, our customers, and our suppliers. We want all significant stake holders to feel that they are part of the Agrarian team.
• We are a joy to work with. Therefore, people want to work with us.
“Our core value of “Relational” serves as the foundation to all that we do. Everything starts with relationships. To me being Relational means collaborating with others to produce the best outcome possible to help others succeed. Whether that is an Agrarian Solutions team member, our distributors, vendors, or the end-users of our products, we believe in working together to help others be successful.”
Nic Bradley, Director of Operations
Smoothie for Success: How BioCycle® Plus Keeps Cows Healthy and Productive YearRound
Are the herds you work with struggling due to lingering summer heat stress, repeat breeders, or feed challenges? BioCycle® Plus is the solution to bring them back to peak performance.
Even as fall approaches, heat stress continues to reduce performance, compounded by feed variability—such as new corn silage and low-palatable feeds from hot weather. Feeding from the bottom of silos or the end of bunks increases the risk of molds and toxins. When performance matters most, BioCycle Plus helps reduce stress, supports cows as they adapt to changing rations, and mitigates the risks from molds and toxins.
BioCycle Plus can even improve cow attitudes! Cows irritable from digestive upset are less likely to perform well. BioCycle Plus acts like a “smoothie for the tummy,” soothing digestive discomfort and keeping cows productive.
The results speak for themselves. One elite genetic herd using IVF relies on BioCycle Plus to maintain high performance—they can’t afford the risk of reduced results. A commercial dairy, after dealing with severe feed issues, added BioCycle Plus to their ration 15 years ago and has never looked back. While neighboring farms struggle, this dairy has expanded several times and still sells excess cows. And then there’s Henry Mitchell from Clover, South Carolina. Henry has an ET business and shares this, “We started an embryo transfer business and needed to give donor cows the best chance of success. Feeding BioCycle Plus has done that. Cows have responded with increased amounts and improved quality of transferred embryos. The results have been remarkable!”
With the average U.S. cow only lasting 2.6 lactations before being culled, BioCycle Plus helps address issues like mastitis, high SCC, low production, poor reproduction, and even bad attitudes. It’s the designated hitter to keep your cows from striking out.
For improving cow health, reducing stress, and ensuring top performance, BioCycle Plus is the best option in the Agrarian family of products.
Dan Hoying, National Farm Program Manager
All In for Service and Success: Connecting, Learning, and Growing Together
“Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve. This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver,” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
At Agrarian Solutions, we embody Dr. King’s belief that service is the foundation of greatness. This spirit drives our commitment to the agriculture industry and inspires our work through All In – Where Champions Connect and the Ruminate This with Agrarian Solutions podcast. Guided by our core values—Relational, Integrity, Strategic, and Excellence—we aim to serve you, our community and industry better.
CHANGE BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES.
In September we seized the opportunity to restructure our content schedule to provide tips, training, and insights to assist with your sales efforts weekly. It’s important to note that the frequency of All In has changed to a once-a-month ZOOM call, which is later uploaded to Facebook and the Agrarian Hub. Here’s what you can expect each week to assist with growing your knowledge and skills:
• Week 1: Ruminate This podcast
• Week 2: Discoveries with Dan email, where National Farm Program Manager, Dan Hoying shares insights from time in the field with the Select Sires cooperative reps from around the country.
• Week 3: Ruminate This podcast
• Week 4: All In – Where Champions Connect
• Week 5: Ruminate This podcast
This updated schedule allows us to deliver more valuable, relevant content to you.
RECENT ALL IN HIGHLIGHTS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS
August 26: Premier Select Sires rep Henry Mitchel shared how including BioCycle Plus in his donor cow program has resulted in phenomenal results. Not only has he seen an increase in the number of embryos produced, but also in the quality of the embryos, all while dealing with summer heat stress.
https://agrarianhub.com/playlist/ZWLGmPAqoy/file/rDe3kpp8qG
August 12: Premier Select Sires Regional Beef Program Manager Jim Yance and BSR Tim Adams, discussed practical solutions to help farms with stress-related challenges, effective stress-mitigating strategies at birth, as well as during weaning, heat events, transportation, regrouping, and toxin challenges. Every cow/calf operation in the USA faces these challenges, and failing to defend and protect cattle from birth to finishing significantly impacts their bottom line.
https://app.membership.io/watch/rq8okMQZN3#/
July 22: Bryce Warriner, CowManager Technical Support Specialist shared on-farm rumination and eating data from cows who received a Ca3 bolus vs cows who received IV calcium. Ca3 was the clear winner in that farm demonstration, as cows who received Ca3 began eating sooner than the cows who received IV calcium. This type of information from the team at CowManager enforces what we know to be already true…not all calcium sources are created equal! Ca3 is research proven to provide the right kind of calcium when that cow needs it most, immediately!
https://agrarianhub.com/playlist/ZWLGmPAqoy/file/Eq5KzjPpDg
Catch up on every All In episode at agrarainhub.com. If you have topic ideas reach out to me (szehr@agrsol.com) and thank you for taking the time to watch and participate in All In.
In the words of Dr. King, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”
Go be GREAT!
Upcoming Promotions
Larry Roth, Ph.D., PAS, Vice President of Nutrition
Caroline Knoblock, MSc, Director of Nutrition
“Whatever Happens Day One, Week One or
Month One of Life…”
The high-dollar value of dairy replacements and beef X dairy calves makes early calf health critical for economic success on the farm or ranch. Incorporating simple concepts into any calf management program will enable a calf to have an improved opportunity to reach its genetic potential, whether as a high-producing dairy cow or as a fast-gaining, high-cutability feedlot steer.
The phrase “whatever happens day one, week one or month one affects a calf the rest of its life” should be the foundation of the calf health management program. Calves are born with a sterile digestive tract and a naïve immune system. Upon birth, the digestive tract is quickly populated by both beneficial bacteria and the three-times faster growing pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa. The calf’s immune system is not able to defend the animal against attacking pathogens for the first two to three weeks of life, hence the extreme importance of early consumption of high-quality colostrum for the absorption of colostrum-based antibodies for early health protection.
As shown in Figure 1, protection from passive immunity peaks during day one and adequate protection from the calf’s own immune system may not occur until day 21 of life or later. The gap between passive and acquired immunity is often termed the “high risk period,” while I prefer to name the protection deficit “Death Valley: where calves go to die”. Even if a calf survives “Death Valley,” sickness during this period may permanently damage the respiratory system or cause long-term harm to the digestive system to reduce nutrient absorption or cause chronic leaky gut.
Table 1. The Agrarian Solutions’ Defend and Protect Calf Program.
The Agrarian Solutions’ Calf Program (Table 1) is designed to defend and protect the calf from day one as the calf progresses through Death Valley, past achieving acquired immunity and on to weaning, setting the stage for fulfillment of genetic potential. A key objective of the Agrarian Calf Program is to inoculate the digestive tract quickly after birth with the correct amount and species of protective bacteria to outcompete digestive pathogens. Further, egg-derived, pathogen-focused proteins target digestive tract pathogens for destruction and to protect the calf. These two objectives are accomplished with either the CONVERT Day-One Calf Bolus or CONVERT Day-One Calf Gel, whichever the calf caregiver prefers.
The CONVERT BIG Calf Powder builds on the Calf Bolus or Gel’s foundation to continually provide beneficial bacteria and pathogenfocused proteins until weaning. The BIG Calf Powder is easily mixed into milk or milk replacer for defending and protecting against pathogens while enhancing nutrient absorption. Colostrum-based antibodies will be broken down to their building block nutrients by the digestive enzymes after the calf reaches a couple of days of age; however, the egg-derived, pathogen-focused proteins in the CONVERT products are resistant to digestive breakdown to enable continual defense and protection against pathogens.
The Calf Bolus and Gel can be given to complement health treatments provided to calves suffering from respiratory or digestive disorders. The pathogen-focused proteins are not affected by antibiotics, and the CONVERT beneficial bacteria aid in replenishing digestive bacteria lost to antibiotics.
Calves are a tremendous economic investment worth defending and protecting to enable the achievement of their genetic potential. Please contact your Agrarian representative for assistance in putting the Agrarian Calf Program in place with your customers’ calves.
Product Champions
Mycotoxin Summary Results
Mycotoxin Report: March – September 2024
Regional differences were clear for mycotoxin assay results for the 505 corn silage and 303 TMR samples collected between March 1 and September 30, 2024, as displayed in Table 1 and 2 and Figures 1 and 2 for the TMR and corn silage respectively.
Following earlier trends, both corn silage and TMR assays suggest DON contamination is the greatest concern in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions with 14 states averaging high risk results for corn silage and 9 states posting TMR averages in the high-risk zone. Interestingly, WI state-wide averaged just over 1,700 ppb DON; however, individual values ranged from low in the western part of the state to very high in the eastern section of WI. A trend that merits watching is the high fumonisin levels in corn silage and TMR for NC, VA and PA as these areas experienced drought conditions during the 2024 growing season.
Six states had TMR DON readings in the high-risk category paired with zearalenone levels greater than 150 ppb. The drought conditions in VA likely resulted in the state’s TMR samples assaying in the high-risk range for DON, T-2 and fumonisin as well as medium risk for zearalenone.
The mycotoxin assay results and risk ranges for individual mycotoxins are only part of the decision of utilizing DTX™ as a herd management tool. The occurrence of multiple mycotoxins in the final diet compounds the challenges posed by each single toxin as the animal must defend and protect against the cumulative toxin load. Consequently, past field experiences of dairy nutritionists and producers indicate that herd indicators (health, reproduction and production), or “what the cows are telling us”, must be teamed with mycotoxin assay results to ultimately determine whether DTX should be fed for mycotoxin protection, as well as the amount of DTX. In situations involving the feeding of a high-risk mycotoxin-contaminated diet and multiple herd indicators, nutritionists and producers relate positive results from supplementing the BioCycle™ Plus product.
Agrarian Solutions encourages nutritionists and livestock producers to submit TMR and feed ingredients for mycotoxin evaluation to determine correct protection strategies. Please contact your regional Agrarian representative for assistance with sample submittal and result evaluation.
Larry Roth, Ph.D., PAS, Vice President of Nutrition
(parts
DON
T-2 Toxin
ppb (parts per billion)
<75 75-150 151+ nd
Zearalenone
ppb (parts per billion)
nd
Fumonisins
ppb (parts per billion)
<600 600-1500 1501+ nd
ppb (parts per billion)
T-2 Toxin
ppb (parts per billion)
<75 75-150 151+ nd
Fumonisins
ppb (parts per billion) <100 100-300 301+ nd March 1, 2024 - September 30, 2024
ppb (parts per billion)
<600 600-1500 1501+ nd
HUB
“The Agrarian Hub is key to all things you need to know about Agrarian Solutions products. If you have a question, if you just want to know anything about the products, the Agrarian Hub is going to give you that information.
Also, the Agrarian Hub is going to have all kinds of chats on there, ALL IN calls, and everything that is currently being discussed. The Agrarian Hub is going to be your key to success.”
Chad Walker Select Sires Member Cooperative
Come Visit With Agrarian!
October
November
November
November
November
December
2024: A Year of Global Growth and Partnership for Agrarian Solutions
Dear Valued Partners,
As we approach the final quarter of the year, I want to take a moment to reflect on the remarkable journey we’ve had so far in 2024 internationally and share our vision for the future. This year has been nothing short of extraordinary for Agrarian Solutions, and we owe much of our success to the dedication and collaboration of our international distributors and partners.
A RECORD-BREAKING YEAR
We’re thrilled to announce that we are on track to achieve international sales levels that we haven’t seen in almost a decade. This resurgence is a testament to the quality of our products, the strength of our relationships, and the shared commitment to excellence that our international distributors embody. Our flagship feed additive, DTX, has continued to perform exceptionally well in markets worldwide, reinforcing its position as a unique solution in livestock nutrition.
STRENGTHENING RELATIONSHIPS AND EXPANDING OUR REACH
This year, we’ve been busier than ever, not only in enhancing the support we provide to our current customers but also in forging new relationships with multiple distributors across various regions. We’ve recognized that the key to sustainable growth lies not only in expanding our customer base but also in ensuring that our existing partners are well-equipped to succeed.
To that end, we’ve been in the process of registering several of our Convert and BioFresh product lines with our international distributors. These products complement our feed additives and ensure producers have solutions for their livestock no matter what challenges they face over their lifetime.
Furthermore, as we continue our commitment to being “Research Driven, Producer Proven,” we are conducting additional research trials internationally with our distributors. These trials focus on swine and poultry, aiming to diversify our research portfolio while validating and enhancing the efficacy of our products in international markets.
If you would like to learn more about our Convert and BioFresh products lines or would like to discuss a potential product trial, don’t hesitate to reach out!
RISE international
JOIN US AT IPPE 2025
We’re also excited to announce that Agrarian Solutions will be attending the International Poultry Processing Expo (IPPE) from January 28-30, 2025. This event is a fantastic opportunity to connect, share insights, and discuss how we can continue to grow together. If you plan to attend, please reach out so we can arrange to catch up at the show.
LOOKING AHEAD
As we look to the future, we remain committed to R.I.S.E. with our international partners. We will continue to focus on expanding our product offerings, enhancing the support we provide to our partners, and exploring new opportunities for growth in untapped markets. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and are confident that, together, we will achieve even greater success in the coming years.
