DAIRY NEWS
NEWFOUNDLAND FARMER HOPES HIS KIDS FOLLOW DAIRY FARMING LIFESTYLE By Tamara Botting
CONTRIBUTOR
W
hile it’s a bit early for them to have made up their minds—the oldest is only 10, and the youngest is still on the way—Ian Richardson hopes his kids will choose to one day take over the family dairy farm. “I don’t think there’s any better way of life,” says the owner of Larch Grove Farms in Newfoundland. “I’m a first-generation dairy farmer, and I hope I’m not going to be the last.” Richardson moved from Prince Edward Island to Newfoundland more than 20 years ago. “My family had a beef and pig farm in P.E.I. I guess there were too many brothers at home, so somebody had to leave. I was the one who floated off one island onto another—that’s the way I like to put it,” he says with a laugh. Richardson says there was too much fluctuation in the beef and hog industry for his liking at the time. “There was never any stability in it.” That’s why he opted to go into dairy farming instead. His family back home ended up following suit and converting soon after. That’s proven to be beneficial for Richardson’s family and for himself personally, as his parents have raised most of his heifers for him. “The price of feed is so expensive in Newfoundland. It’s usually cheaper to send them off
IAN RICHARDSON hopes his kids— Mackenzie, 10, Nash, 2, Landon, 7, and the baby on the way—will choose to go into dairy farming when they’re older. 20
MAY 2021 | MILKPRODUCER
IAN RICHARDSON with his partner, Jessica Murphy, run their dairy operation, Larch Grove Farms, while also raising their kids, Nash, 2, Mackenzie, 10, Landon, 7, and a new baby on the way.
the island to get them fed,” Richardson says. He often sends his calves out to heifer raisers after they reach around six to eight months old, bringing them back when they’re two to three months away from calving. “It’s one of the main goals the farm has here— to try and get some sort of a facility put up so we can start to raise our own heifers and not have to send them away,” Richardson says, adding it might be a while before that can happen, though. Richardson says the farm has been growing by leaps and bounds lately because demand for locally raised beef has been increasing. “We’ve started to raise quite a few beef animals to try and fill that market,” he says. “We’re cross breeding dairy cows with Angus and Simmental bulls to grow the number of beef animals we have available.” At the same time, Richardson’s dairy operation has about 200 cattle milked twice daily in a tiestall barn with hired help. “Right now, we’re averaging about 38 litres a cow,” he says, adding butterfat content is usu-
ally around 4.55 to 4.6 kilograms. Richardson knows more automation could improve the operation, but at the same time, “I want to make sure my kids have some interest in the place before we go and sink that kind of investment in the farm.” When he’s not milking, Richardson is in the fields, farming about 1,000 acres. “We mostly grow forages,” he says. “Our season is pretty short here, so it really restricts us in what we can grow.” That can be challenging, given how expensive it is to ship in feed, but that’s also why Richardson is so keen on following environmentally sustainable practices, such as having a good nutrient management plan. “You’ve got to take a lot of care and pride in taking care of the land because it’s what will look after us,” he says. Tamara Botting is an author and award-winning journalist.
WWW.MILKPRODUCER.CA