E Is For Environment

It's June Dairy Month! The barn doors are open, 

so join me on my daily A to Z journey 

to learn more about dairy. 

  E is for Environment

 

 We not only work on our farm, we live here too. 

We understand the importance of protecting our natural resources. 

We appreciate nature and take good care of our land. 

We follow good conservation practices to reduce soil and water erosion.

 

 

We use water responsibly. State and local government agencies regularly inspect and test water on dairy farms. 

 

Dairy farms produce a gallon of milk using 95 percent less land 

and 65 percent less water compared with 1944.

That makes this farmer proud!

Water... I Need Water

 This is the view out our front door today. We are again met with an additional 5" of the beautiful (?) white snow.

This is the view out our back door today. Yes, that is a hose winding its way through the snow. It reaches from the faucet on the back of our house to the heifer (young females) barn. It seems that buried water lines that are six feet underground CAN freeze. Since farmers are notorious for improvising when necessary, Farmer John brought the garden hose out of retirement so that our girls could receive their much needed drinks. Milk cows drink about a bathtub of water each day, and even though these ladies are not old enough to milk yet, you can bet they still need a lot of water. Caring for our animals is our top priority, even on snowy days!

Dairy Makes Sense

Every Day Is Earth Day

April 22, 2013. Happy Earth Day! Here at Bremer Farms every day is Earth Day. We support practices that make economic sense, help the environment and are socially responsible to our communities and our world. One of the ways we do this is by reducing energy and reusing water through the use of a plate cooler. So how does it work and why is it good for the environment? When milk leaves the cow it is a warm 101 degrees F. It needs to quickly cool to 40 degrees and a plate cooler helps with this. After the milk leaves the cow it travels from the milking machine through stainless steel pipes to the cooling tank. (It's never touched by human hands). Along the way, before reaching the cooling (bulk) tank, it goes through the plate cooler.

Our plate cooler is mounted on the ceiling. The milk enters the cooler on the lower left side of the above picture. It stays enclosed in these pipes but winds its way through this cooling system which has cold water cooling these pipes, therefore cooling the milk that is safely inside the pipes. The milk then moves on to the bulk milk tank via the larger pipe on the lower right of this photo. But what about the water that was used for cooling the milk? That water is piped to a tank in our cow yard where the cows enjoy a clean, fresh drink.

The plate cooler on the ceiling (upper right). Milk travels via pipe to bulk tank (lower left).

Since the cooling process begins in the plate cooler, this reduces our electricity used by the bulk milk tank to cool the milk. The water serves double duty by helping to cool the fresh milk and then moves on to supply the cows with the necessary water needed to produce more milk. One of the reasons we became farmers is because of our love for our land and animals. What better way to show this love than to respect our natural resources?

How are you going to show the love on Earth Day?