For these three Pennsylvania dairy producers, their stories are each very different but have one commonality: Working full time on the family dairy operation wasn’t always their dream. After several years in careers off the farm, Greta Halahan of Singing Brook Farms, Jared Kurtz of Kurtland Farms and Donny Bartch of Merrimart Farms each found their way back to the farm with a fresh perspective and eye on technology, innovation and diversification.
During the Dairy Financial and Risk Management Conference hosted by the Center for Dairy Excellence last September, these producers led a panel discussion about the specific steps they have taken to move their multi-generational family businesses forward.
Using innovative technology to motivate employees
Halahan, the herd manager at Singing Brook Farms in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, has an unconventional way of managing their cows: She manages the dairy herd remotely from 130 miles away and visits the farm every other week. As a generational family farm that began in 1951, Halahan and her family milk approximately 300 cows, farm about 2,500 acres, and raise all their replacements. She began helping with herd checks in 2019, and her management responsibilities and remote leadership style have evolved from there.
She says the distance has given her a laser focus and enhanced communication with her employees. Halahan lives by the motto, “I have a prominent job, but not a significant job.”
“I think this strategy has been key in being able to work remotely and make that management style work. I understand I have a prominent job and represent the dairy farm, but I will not be the one to keep a calf alive or the one who makes sure she got her colostrum at 4:30 this morning,” she said. “While I have a prominent job, it’s not a significant one. The significant ones are the jobs our employees do. Understanding that, and the way we have developed protocols around that, has been really transformational for us.”
In order to write – and maintain – clear protocols for managing the herd, Halahan and her team infuse technology and communication apps into their daily communication, including SlackBot and CowManager software. She documents all protocols in the app and over-communicates with team members about procedures and expectations. According to Halahan, these protocols and technology have provided a level of transparency for employees and allow them to take initiative.
“One of our protocols for fresh cows is to list whether she got a YMPC [supplement]. Some of our employees have started doing it on their own. One came to me and asked, 'How do I do the YMPC?’ I never asked him to give the cows YMPC, but he saw it in the app and now he puts it in there,” Halahan shared. “The only reason he probably never did it before was because he didn’t know. But now he does. It’s such a cool thing to be able to reward an employee for taking initiative.”
In 2019, after Singing Brook Farms invested in CowManager tags, they went from three to two services per conception in a year. Their peak milk improved 17 pounds, and they also achieved a lower somatic cell count. Beyond these traditional metrics, Halahan says the technology helped cut their on-farm mortality in half, giving her employees a tangible way to get purpose and fulfillment out of their daily work.
“That’s not really a tangible measurement that I hear people talk about a lot, but it was so important for us. Because dairy farming is a 5,000-piece puzzle, how does our employee who does herd health work tangibly know she’s doing a good job? It’s going to take a long time for her to put all 5,000 pieces together and see [a reward from her work],” she explained.
Halahan and an employee analyzed a two-year period for every cow that died on the farm and looked at causes and how they could have prevented deaths. The employee set a goal on what she wanted to reduce that number by, and Halahan says she is exceeding the goal to this day.
“There are numbers that are certainly important, such as cost of production, but I find those numbers are for the significant people – not the prominent ones. By finding simple, tangible goals, she’s more motivated, and it creates a way for her to win. There’s an incentive for her because she has a goal,” Halahan added.
Singing Brook Farms continues to invest in new technology to move their operation forward. In 2020, Halahan and her team revamped their calf and heifer program. In 2021, after receiving a Dairy Excellence Grant from the Center for Dairy Excellence (CDE), they built a new heifer barn. In 2022, they invested in total mixed ration (TMR) tracking software. While this technology all comes with steep learning curves, she says it has taught them to think differently.
“Implementing new technology is really difficult. The challenge is, not only do you have to change the things that weren’t so great, but you also have to change the things that were working well. You have to think differently,” she said. “Because of our model, I’m not there every day, so I have to trust the technology completely. That’s hard to do. I know it’s not what a traditional herd manager does, but I think it’s done some incredibly cool things for us.”
Transitioning between generations with a team approach and entrepreneurial spirit
Kurtz, another panelist for the discussion, manages Kurtland Farms in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with his father, Tim. Together, they are the third and fourth generation to operate the dairy that has been in the family for over 100 years. They currently milk 320 cows in two facilities, including one barn with four Lely robots and an original tiestall barn. They farm 270 acres and double-crop several forages.
After working for a tech company for a few years out of college, Kurtz says his perspective changed over time and he made the decision to return to the farm in 2014.
“I came back with all kinds of excitement. My dad had just built this four-robot facility and was adopting new technology. We couldn’t wait for what the future held. I had been working behind a desk for the previous two years, and I thought it would be more fun to sit behind a tractor wheel,” he shared. “My parents told me I needed to come up with 10 reasons why I wanted to come back to the farm and 10 reasons why they should let me. It was really important and wise of them, even though it was a little frustrating at the time. It really made me think, is this what I want to do and why do I want to do it?”
In 2015-16, Kurtz and his family were hit with a dose of reality when milk prices dropped after a few years of record-high prices. They had just taken on a significant amount of debt to invest in technology for the future, so Kurtz and his dad set up a transition team through the CDE to help make crucial changes to their business.
The team consisted of an attorney, extension agent, independent nutritionist consultant, accountant and more. Over the next few years, they worked with the team to successfully adjust their feeding strategies and begin growing all their own forages, reduce their cost of production by $1 per hundredweight (cwt), implement a new business plan, and work to find balance between family life and farm life. By 2021-22, with their trusted team of advisers already in place, Kurtz and his family felt confident to start the conversation around transitioning to the next generation.
“Milk prices still weren’t good, but we decided to stick with it. What really allowed our family to do that was that we had a mutual goal of seeing the farm succeed into the future within the family,” Kurtz shared. “My dad worked 30 years on the farm to get it to where it was, but he realized it wasn’t just about him. He had a very hands-off approach. He was very gracious and gave me room to step in and take ownership. That was one thing that really allowed us to make it through this process.”
Now, Kurtz and his dad manage the dairy together on a day-to-day basis. They have several overlapping responsibilities, but no job is too small or dirty for either of them. They each have a voice in their specific areas but work to communicate about everything together.
“There really isn’t finger-pointing when there is a mistake. That has allowed us to build up a lot of relational equity over the years. I don’t think you can put a price tag on that,” Kurtz added. “It’s so foundational to what we do. You never have to worry you’re going to get screamed at, and that’s a culture my dad has really created. We try to empower employees at all levels to make guided decisions and not be paralyzed about making the wrong ones.”
Over the next five years, he says their goals are to continue with a smooth transition and pursue new diversification opportunities and sources of income for the farm. Kurtz is eager to begin giving the next generation room to grow through technology and new ideas.
“I’m just holding the farm until the next generation [my son] gets in there, because he’s the one who will take it to the next level. His business ideas are far beyond the ideas I had,” he shared. “Through the transition, there were plenty of times we could have walked away, but when you see your kid’s entrepreneurial ideas coming through, that’s what will get you up every day.”
Forging a path to the future with diversification
Bartch closed the panel discussion by sharing how he and his wife, Shari, are continuing a legacy that started over 100 years ago at Merrimart Farms in Perry County, Pennsylvania. They represent the fourth generation of farming in the Martin family and currently milk 280 cows on 1,000 acres. They have five full-time employees and eight part-time employees. Always looking for ways to diversify their business, they also do custom farming and finish Holstein steers. Bartch says this has solidified his need for efficiency.
“Simple is better. We want to make things easy for employees and myself. We want to figure out the bottlenecks for how we can save time or money. I value time even more than money,” he shared. “We’re always looking at how we can streamline projects and different tasks, so it helps with employees but also with balancing the family and the farm. The more time you’re wasting dealing with a problem that could have been resolved sooner, that’s less time you’re spending with family.”
To bring in additional revenue sources, Bartch and his team have been improving on-farm storage for crops and storage for fertilizer to help lock in prices and capitalize on commodity price fluctuation. Their custom farming work, grain marketing from the on-farm storage and steer enterprise have been additional revenue sources amidst a volatile marketplace.
“The diversification has really helped us get through some of the low points when milk prices aren’t the best. It has been additional revenue sources to hold us over,” Bartch said. “Instead of going in the hole, you can at least stay even. Then, when there are good milk prices, you can start building again.”
Bartch says their future goals involve continuing to reduce volatility by locking in commodity prices, while also considering what the next transition and next generation might look like. They have invested in new technology to help with sparking interest from the next generation, including an automated calf feeding facility. They also broke ground on a robotic milking barn in the last year.
“We have a lot of diversification because we have a great workforce right now. We have three full-time employees who have been with the farm for over 30 years, so it feels like they are irreplaceable. With that in mind, we know they won’t be here forever, so we’re starting to use more and more technology to help compensate for that,” Bartch shared.
Through a transformation team grant through the CDE, and a group of trusted advisers by his side, he worked with them to crunch the numbers and find a realistic, but exciting, path for the future.
“When we first started thinking about this robotics project, it just seemed too big to comprehend. After we got the grant, we were able to do a feasibility study. We worked through our financials and from that, we did some preliminary engineering and a basic barn design to get some rough estimates,” he shared. “Because of the amount of work we were able to do on the financial side, we realized it was easily feasible, and that’s when we pulled the trigger. It helped solidify the direction our future is going.”
