15 minute read
Alltech ONE conference in the US
Robots of scale
Agrícola Ancali in Chile is the largest robotic dairy farm in the world – and plans to expand to 10,000 cows with 150 milking robots in the coming years.
By Samantha Tennent
The Alltech ONE conference held in Kentucky in the US earlier this year covered everything from dairying to agribusiness, agritech, sustainability, climate change and more.
The largest robotic dairy farm in the world is already an enormous robotic milking operation, and has plans to expand even further.
Agrícola Ancali in Chile, South America, has 90 robots milking 6,000 cows. It plans to grow to 10,000 cows with 150 milking robots in the coming years. It is producing 98.5 million litres of milk annually with aspirations of achieving 60L per cow within five years, as well as a dream to become net positive for emissions.
Executive director of Agricola Ancali Pedro Heller is excited about the opportunities that technology and further expansion bring.
“The benefits from the robots have been remarkable. We’ve seen 10% more production, on average an extra lactation per cow as well as better animal welfare conditions, and we decreased our labour requirements by 40%,” Heller says.
“We have big visions for the future and want to become game changers. We are continually striving for excellence in our animals, our people and for the environment.”
Heller recently spoke about Ancali’s journey and its philosophies at ONE in Kentucky in the United States, an international event hosted by Alltech.
“We know we can be different and we want to be different and we are building our seal to differentiate us from other producers,” he told the conference.
It deems its facilities a “cow five-star hotel” with an abundance of technology to monitor the health of the herd. It emphasises cow comfort with things like special nutrition, automatic brushes and an effort to have minimal machine noise.
“Payback on our five-star hotel policy is an average of 45 litres of milk per cow produced daily, a 0.8% prevalence of mastitis, 0.5% prevalence of lameness, only 1.2% of the herd in hospital at any time,” Heller says.
Its somatic cell counts are always below 120,000 with low bacteria counts and the cows are producing more than 7.5% milksolids.
“We have invested a lot in welfare and technology but it pays for itself in the health status and yields the cows are producing.”
Agrícola Ancali also invests a lot in its people, with a team of 505 working across the wider business and 39% focused on the complete dairy process.
The business is relatively young. Heller’s grandmother and father bought a farm in southern Chile in 1987 and began breeding and racing horses, but his father wanted to produce more from the land. He had cropping in mind but was also considering cows when he bought a small 50-cow dairy farm in 2002.
“I share my dad’s passion, we are a bit mad and crazy sometimes,” Heller laughs.
“But we have come a long way in a short space of time.”
Market conditions indicated they needed scale in the business. In 2006
Pedro Heller
they expanded to 4,500 cows with rotary milking sheds. In 2008 they created their own breeding centre and continued to expand, to 6,000 cows with about 8,300ha of productive land in the operation.
The transition to robots took place in two stages. In 2014 they compared the benefits of using a DeLaval VMS system to those of a rotary milking system, using eight robots for 500 cows. Once they realised the benefits from the perspective of economics and cow wellbeing, they explored further and modified the farm to suit an automated milking system.
But environmental pressures were mounting and Ancali also diversified into producing energy through biodigesters that digest the manure.
“We produce and sell energy because the market conditions were perfect for it but we were also thinking of the environment and what we can do to be sustainable.” Executive director of Agricola Ancali Pedro Heller, presenting at Alltech ONE in the US, says the business has big visions for the future and wants to become a game changer in the excellence of its animals, people and the environment.
A large farm needs a large team to keep the operation running smoothly and Agrícola Ancali has 505 people working across the wider business. The operation continues to analyse business opportunities and has plans to leverage its unique production system into the niche A2 market. It is also planning to expand internationally, starting in the US, and has interests in vertical farming and aquaponics and is developing the first heavy-duty vertical farm in Chile. It is also developing a second wind farm in Ancali’s paddocks. “We have the team capabilities, we have the knowledge and we are constantly learning and investing in technology and processes,” Heller says. As a business, it is aiming to take more control of feeding costs as feed currently accounts for 55% of operating expenses. And the team are constantly striving to be more efficient and sustainable, with a vision of being the most efficient dairy in the world in relation to the amount of water used to produce milk. But Ancali’s biggest ambition is to be recognised by the consumer. “We have a lot of information and we need to be able to tell it to the consumer,” says Heller. “We need to be open and share information, so maybe in the future if you go to the supermarket and scan a QR code you might be able to know what cow you are drinking milk from and what part of the world she is in, and hopefully we can lead the charge for something like that.” n
Sustainable relationships
By Samantha Tennent
A UK dairy run in conjunction with a beef genetics business has an exciting production story to tell consumers.
When UK dairy farmer Philip Halhead sold his bull for £5000 he thought he was getting a pretty good deal. That is until three years later, when he found out how much that bulls’ semen was selling for. That became the inspiration for his own business, Norbreck Genetics, which he has established alongside the family dairy farm based in Cockerham, Lancaster in the United Kingdom.
“After hearing about the success from that first bull I refused to sell the next bull to a breeding company and developed my own. The rest is history as they say,” Halhead said during his presentation at Alltech’s ONE, which was held in Lexington, Kentucky, earlier this year.
“At Norbreck we look to the future of agriculture, which centres on sustainability, the consumer, who is king, and I truly believe dairy farmers are the beef producers of the future.”
He wants more of the value seen across the supply chain with profits shared more fairly. And he recognises that, for the future of sustainability, both business and environmental, farmers will need to do more with less and that will require the very best people.
“I left university at 21 with no leadership skills, and no matter what sector you are involved with, there is a lack of leadership and I think that’s the biggest challenge in agriculture,” Halhead says.
He has been part of establishing a scheme with the Buitelaar Group that connects the consumer and producer through a production story.
“It’s becoming increasingly important to provide food with a story, particularly in the UK, where we have a generally wealthy population compared to other parts of the world.
“In a lot of places, red meat is becoming unaffordable, when you think about the inputs required to get one kilogram of red meat protein compared with fish or chicken or other protein sources.
“Red meat will become a luxury and much more highly valued than what we see today.”
Halhead spends most of his time at the consumer end of the market, thinking about the future, not just for his business but for what consumers want.
“Particularly in the highly developed areas around Europe and the UK we need to think about what they’re going to want to eat and what they’ll be willing to pay for,” Halhead says.
“And when you put a story together you will drive consumers to choose one of the higher value pieces on the menu and not downgrade to pasta or a chicken dish.”
The Buitelaar scheme wants calves at 55kg around a month old. They have an arrangement with farmers on a set price for the calves that gets confirmed before the cow is inseminated.
“Sometimes with supermarket partnerships they try to be too controlling with things like which bulls to use and it doesn’t feel genuine,” Halhead says.
“But with Buitelaar we started with what the consumer wants and we went to the farmers saying we needed to work with them to create that product.”
Halhead says Buitelaar values the dairy sector
Norbreck Genetics Longhorn, a breed native to the United Kingdom. Norbreck Genetics owner Philip Halhead, with wife Rachel with sons Max and Angus, says the company focuses on the future of agriculture, which centres on sustainability and the consumer.
Philip Halhead
as dairy herds provide an excellent base since there are thousands of the same type of cow and dairying has good levels of experience and its operations are fine-tuned.
“There was a drive to work with the farmers that have the health protocols in place for the calves – and thinking about who is doing a good job, we know dairy farms are a good option.
“Typically calves leave dairy farms healthy, unimpacted by pneumonia, have the right levels of colostrum at birth etcetera, and achieve target live weights.
“So now the farmers have the milk cheque coming into the farm, the cull value of the cow coming off that farm and now, in big numbers, they can sell calves to Buitelaar.
“Which means there is sharing of margins and a common purpose with excited consumers: what a story.”
Norbreck Genetics provides the beef semen for the scheme, offering a range of breeds. The business has been growing exponentially over the past eight years. It has 10 farmers who test the semen to determine the gestation length, calving ease and quality of the calves as they follow them through the chain so farmers can have confidence in the bulls they choose.
“Sometimes in business you need a bit of luck, but our developments in genetics over the years have given us the expertise and as a dairy farmer myself I am one of my customers and I am very proud of that,” Halhead says.
And the concept fits perfectly with sexed semen, which has advanced significantly over the past couple of decades. The technology had flaws when it was first developed and began to be used in Europe in the early 2000s, but in about 2010 it began to improve. And from 2017 onwards it has had incredible growth.
“It’s all building on the story for the consumer and driving towards sustainability for the future,” Halhead says. n
Norbreck Genetics provides beef semen for the Buitelaar Group in a scheme that connects the consumer and producer through a production story. Norbreck offers a range of breeds, including Strawberry-Field-Northstar, a British Blue.
Hybrid opportunities
By Samantha Tennent
The number of dairy farmers in the US using beef breeds over their herds to produce beef for the market has grown substantially.
Around 33 million cattle are harvested annually for beef in the United States, with 20% of those animals originating in the dairy industry. A recent shift has seen the majority of that 20% being dairy cross beef animals, as opposed to the purebred dairy animals such as Holstein steers that it used to be.
Two industry experts spoke about this trend at ONE, hosted by Alltech in Kentucky earlier this year. Both Dr Dale Woerner from the department of animal and food sciences at Texas Tech University and Mike de Groot, a founding partner and director of TD Beef, believe there is huge potential for the dairy cross beef animal.
“It isn’t a new concept for beef to originate from dairy cows,” Woerner says.
“But it is new to see so many animals coming from dairy crossed with beef rather than pure dairy breeds and we’ve seen a huge shift in a short timeframe.”
He highlighted the notable changes in semen sales in the US, with more beef semen being used and less dairy. The trend was kicked off in 2017 when the market saw value slashed for Holstein steers.
“Beef packers decided to discount Holstein steers for a variety of reasons, as these animals weren’t producing the same as traditional beef, which resulted in little to no value for that by-product,” Woerner says.
“So those economic signals certainly influenced dairy farmers to do something different and that’s the drastic shift in the semen sales with the upturn of beef semen on dairy operations.”
Woerner and his team at the university have been researching the value of dairy cross beef animals and how they fit in the industry. He speaks of the known benefits of conventional beef having faster growth rates, better gut health and higher dressing percentages than dairy breeds. And how they are more muscular and their steak is more symmetrical with better colour, making it more desirable to the consumer.
But in contrast, the dairy cross beef animal has its own favourable traits, such as genetic consistency and more tender meat. Dairy genetics have the tendency to produce more marbling, they are leaner on average and their tender beef can be more flavourful than conventional beef.
Researchers have also looked into whether breeding dairy animals to beef genetics has any impact on fertility and overall productivity and lactation. Apart from an increase in gestation length of 2-3 days on average, there are no other negative impacts.
“Total productivity, in terms of the total milk produced, is at least no different
The quality of meat animals is as important as it is in producing milk.
from the traditional production system of using dairy bulls and dairy cows, so there isn’t a loss in productivity on the dairy farm when they shift to beef genetics,” Woerner says.
And looking at efficiency and how those animals perform when they enter the feedlots, they find the dairy cross beef has similar results to conventional beef in terms of days on feed, where the purebred dairy steers would have to be on the feedlot around 75-100 days more in comparison to those crossbreeds.
“There’s a large sustainability message there and a reduction in days on feed is good news for farmers,” Woerner says.
The dairy cross beef meat product also has proven to have more favourable traits than purebred dairy meat.
For example in a retail setting, steaks from Holstein steers need to be separated due to the differences in appearance.
They have sharper angles and are slightly darker in colour, which makes them less desirable to the consumer. But with dairy cross beef, there is no significant noticeable colour difference or appearance to conventional beef, so they are able to be sold together.
“It’s a logistical win because there is no need to keep track of which meat came from which type of animal to ensure its displayed separately,” Woerner says.
De Groot also shared his views and spoke about the work being done at TD Beef.
“At TD Beef we understand the value of collaboration and we focus on rewarding every shareholder in the supply chain from conception to consumption, which has positive environmental impacts too,” De Groot says.
“Dairy farmers understand the concept of the same product being valued differently for different reasons, for example, lower somatic cell count milk is more valuable than high somatic cell count milk.
“It’s the same with the calves they are producing and it’s great to see more dairy farmers are embracing that they are producing meat animals and the quality is as important as it is in milk.”
He can see how farmers are recognising they need to integrate with the beef industry as much as possible to protect themselves from the volatility of the milk market. And the integration supports traceability.
“Our international markets tell us they want a traceable product and until recently there were few options as the traditional beef market isn’t as well equipped.
“But utilising more dairy-based animals opens that door because not only is there a record of which farm it came from, but which cow, the day it was inseminated, which bull it was inseminated to and everything following through the feeding and finishing phase.
“It’s a great story to be able to tell.” n
Dr Dale Woerner from the department of animal and food sciences at Texas Tech University says beef originating from dairy is not new but the number of animals is. TD Beef director Mike de Groot says farmers recognise the need to integrate with the beef industry to protect themselves from the volatility of the milk market.
