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From Our Side Of The Fence

Page 16 • Dairy Star • Saturday, April 11, 2015

Why are you involved as a young cooperative?

Brittany Spurley Linden, Wis. Iowa County 680 cows

Derek and Marcie Peterson Black River Falls, Wis. Jackson County 80 cows Why did you decide to get involved with your cooperative's young producer program? Our eld man, Bob Hoertz, convinced me into going to a YC lunch. I ended up having a good time meeting other YCs, and I started attending as many events as I could.

How many and what type of events do you attend each year? Which one is most enjoyable? We attend four events a year. These events include our Blair Division meeting, Blair Division summer event, AMPI Annual Meeting, and the YC summer event. We think the YC summer event is most enjoyable. We enjoy touring other dairy farms, and the kids have a lot of fun.

What role do you play within your organization? We were elected to be on the steering committee. Last year, we were the members at large, and this year we are the vice chair couple.

How is being involved beneted you as a person and as a dairy farmer? As a person, this organization has helped us to be more outgoing, and has helped us to develop a lot of new friendships. As a farmer, we have gotten ideas from the farm tours we've been able to go on, and we've learned things from the speakers that have been at meetings we've attended.

What topic do you think is most critical to young producers in the dairy industry now? The milk price would be the biggest right now. But on a long term topic, we think we are all trying to improve production and genetics, and be more efcient in hopes to have a long career in dairying ahead of us.

Tell us about your farm and your plans for your dairy for this year. We have a 278 acre farm where we milk 80 cows in a double-6 parlor. The cows are housed in a sand bedded free stall barn. With the drop in the milk price our plan for this year is to try to make it through without any major expenses or troubles.

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SKIDLOADERS

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Town & Country IMPLEMENT

Marty and Tracy Shay, shown with children, Madison (9), Evan (6) and Vanessa (3) Albany, Minn.

Stearns County 60 cows Why did you decide to get involved with your cooperative’s young producer program? Our eldman asked if I wanted to be involved. We’ve really benetted from it.

We’ve learned a lot of information and seen a lot of different things and met a lot of dairy farmers.

How many and what type of events do you attend each year? Which one is most enjoyable? There are four. We attend the YC retreat in Alexandria, the YC summer picnic hosted at a different farm every year, the Monte Carlo night that we hold at the church in Albany and the fall banquet that’s held at the Greenwald Pub. The fall banquet is also where they name the YC couple of the year. That couple gets to go the National Milk Convention. Our favorite is the retreat. We enjoy the speakers that come in and talk about calf care, for example, then we get to visit with other farmers. We also have a banquet, a disc jockey and then the YC couple talks about what they learned from the National Milk meeting.

What role do you play within your organization? We are board members. We help organize and plan events with the other YC members on the board. It’s a big group effort.

How is being involved beneted you as a person and as a dairy farmer? We feel we’re more educated with what’s going on in the dairy industry. It’s also allowed us to see different farms and visit with different farmers. We get different ideas about information to use on the farm. It’s a wealth of ideas and a great group of young people to visit with. We’ve met a lot of good people from all over the area and country. When we attended the National Milk meeting a couple years ago we learned how to transfer the farm from Marty’s parents to us.

What topic do you think is most critical to young producers in the dairy industry right now? Why? The milk

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FORAGE / HAY

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Why did you decide to get involved with your cooperative's young producer program? My eld rep brought it up and said it was going to be a great program and I should try it out, so I sent my application in.

How many and what type of events do you attend each year? Which one is most enjoyable? There are about four to six events throughout the year. We had anything from social media training to plant tours to NMPF meetings to PDPW meetings. I really enjoyed the social media training and the plant tours. The plant tours helped me see where our milk goes once it leaves the bulk tanks.

What role do you play within your organization? I'm a member.

How is being involved beneted you as a person and as a dairy farmer? Joining our co-op, Foremost Farms, Young Leaders Group has let me meet other farmers within our coop and make new friends and networks. It helped me better understand our co-op overall.

What topic do you think is most critical to young producers in the dairy industry now? Farm transition, whether it be parents to kids or farmer to local kid that is interested in buying in. Either way, there is a huge debt load to be taking over in a market that is very cyclical and consumer oriented.

Tell us about your farm and your plans for your dairy for this year. Our family farm consists of my parents, Dan and Cheryl, by brother, Shaun, and myself. We milk 620 mostly registered Holsteins and have 1,200 acres of crops ground. We are looking at building a calf barn to replace our calf huts this year and looking into a transition area/ hospital barn. price. It’s tough because your inputs stayed up and the milk price dropped. Everybody has plans but they are a little worried about the price. We want to survive farming and continue what we are doing.

Tell us about your farm and your plans for your dairy for this year. We both work full time on the farm. We milk 60 cows in a tie-stall barn. We crop 350 acres of land.

We plant corn, alfalfa and soybeans. We raise out all our youngstock. We built a heifer shed last year and plan to maintain this year.

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