De eerste foto stond dus op de voorpagina en de tweede bij het verhaal.
Het artikel heb ik overgetypt, omdat er te veel geknipt en plakt moest worden en het dan misschien niet meer te lezen is.
Dutch dairyman makes most of American farm dream
by Steve Meyer
In July 2005, Eduard Reuling made history by becoming the first foreigner to purchase land in Iowa in 40 years to start a farm operation. Reuling, from Eesveen, Netherlands, purchased 38 acres of bare land south of Shell Rock to establish the Snow Rock Dairy Farm.
He and his wife, Resy, and their children visited Iowa in 2003, along with several other families from the Netherlands and were attracted to the Waverly area they toured as part of the New Farm Family Project.
The project allows immigrant dairy farmer families permanent residency status under immigration law and provides them with a green-card visa.
Managing risk
Reuling has overcome challenges and had a sharp learning vurve in the nearly five years in Iowa, transitioning from the quota system of dairy farming he grew up with in the Netherlands to the market-driven system of the United States.
"We learned so much in our first four years here, now we understand the industry. This is a different system than we were used to in the Netherlands. With the quota system we had in the Netherlands you were guaranteed profitability, but they changed that so now, they will have this roller coaster also", Reuling said.
Finding the right people to employ at his dairy farm was perhaps the foremost challenge that Reuling faced.
"Now we have very good help that really work hard", Reuling said, noting that he has a herdsman end assistant herdsman who have made significant positive differences in his operation. That, coupled with dicontinuing use of bovine somatotropin (bST), has led to improvements in his cow herd.
His cow culling is down to 20 percent, and he now averages 17 heifers born a month and culls only six cows.
Like all dairy farmers, Reuling suffered the woes of the recent downturn in the dairy industry also. Two years ago, when milk prices were more than $20 per hundredweight, he contracted his milk at $12,50 per hundredweight and corn was $6 to $7 per bushel.
"What we do now is a lot of risk management. We book a lot of our inputs, like corn and beanmeal, a year ahead. We lock in the input and the milk prices, so we can now pencil out that we are profitable", Reuling explained.
Reuling founded the Snow Rock Dairy with 350 cows. He now has 390 head, including dry cows, and is looking to expand to milk another 50 to 60 cows. His goal is to have more than 400 milking cows.
The Snow Rock herd is primarily Holsteins, with some Jerseys and Brown Swiss.
Learning along the way
Reuling hasn't changed anything with his dairy facilities since they started. Currently, he has 300 stalls in his free-stall barn for 335 cows. He cannot add more cows or it will take away from the cows' comfort and affect milk production.
He wants to put an addition onto his barn for his fresh cows before they are out in the free-stall barn.
The Reuling dairy operation isn't the only thing that is expanding. He family has grown, too. When they came to the U.S., they had two children, Jenny, now 10 and Ryanne, now 8. Soon came Nick, now 4 and most recently Walter, 2.
The Reuling family has returned home to the Netherlands only once since they came to Iowa.
Tentatively, they are planning to make the trip this summer.
"We had some rough times, but we are lucky we are still here. We learned a lot during our down times, bur we are doing very good right now", says Reuling.
(Meyer is a freelance writer from Garrison)
