The net-zero future of dairy farming

Lincoln Thackorie stood proudly in front of one of the latest innovations at his farm – a state-of-the-art, 12 parallel, rapid-exit milking machine.

The mammoth machine, designed to milk cows in a safe and quick way that will not distress them, is part of a new wing that will serve as the milking parlour.

Thackorie said this machinery will enhance his production and make his farm even more profitable than it is, in a sustainable manner.

“When you say an increased cost, it is more of an increased investment because it will make more money,” he said. “The inputs may be high, but after that you will see your returns. That is what we look at.”

About 12 kilometres away, on Turure Road, Sangre Grande, Priam Singh and his daughter Sharmin also have something to be proud about – triplet cows.

They were born about two years ago. Sharmin said triplets are a very rare occurrence. The cows are of breeding age, so for the moment they are housed in a wooden shed with a galvanise roof, with the other breeding cows.

“I am hoping that two of them are pregnant,” she told reporters last Friday.

For most people it would be hard to tell the difference between the cows, but Sharmin knows each one just by looking.

“The older one is darker, the younger one has spots and the youngest one has more white,” she told Business Day with a big grin.

The rest of the 50-year old, 20-acre farm looks the same as the breeding section, with wooden structures for each section, put together with nails and love, that separate each part of the process of producing healthy, clean milk.

These two farms, despite the major differences, produce A-grade, high-quality milk for Nestle, in higher volumes, on a daily basis.

Nestle invited the media on a tour of the two farms on October 11. Officials said the two farms were among their most consistent and highest-producing out of the 76 local farms that supplies the company with local milk.

The two farms have different needs, with one looking to the future and the other keeping traditional farming alive and well. But with the help and investment in innovations from Nestle, both are able to prove that with sustainable methods and the right support, any dairy farm can produce high-quality milk in large quantities.

The farm of the future

Thackorie’s farm is the site where Nestle hopes to embark on one of its latest initiatives to make it a net-zero-emitting farm by 2030. Nestle, using this farm as a pilot project, hopes all their farms will use similar practices to ensure they are net-zero emitters.

The farm is 1,176 acres. It is akin to the Ponderosa, a fictional farm on the classic TV series, Bonanza, with streams, man-made lakes, natural rivers and wide green pastures spread across a wide expanse of land. Fruit trees and massive spruce trees cast shade for the 276 dairy animals on the farm. The farm is also home to one of the last remaining herds of buffalypso – the biological wonder created by Stephen Bennett in the early 1960s which was a result of cross-breeding cows and buffalo.

Thackorie started the farm in 2019. Before that, it was a research facility.

“This farm is really a public-private partnership between the government of TT, Nestle and the farm.

"Over the last year we were giving them (government) milk for their breeding unit. This year they are asking that we give them two medium buffalypso. It is a symbiotic relationship that we have here,” Thackorie said.

The cattle on the farm are Holstein and Jersey. The Jerseys are bred for the high fat content of their milk and the Holstein for the volume they produce.

Although he is fairly new to dairy farming, Thackorie has said he plans to almost double the number of cows on the farm to 500 within the next two years.

“For me, I am lucky. I get to do something that I have a passion for,” he said. “I like doing it. You know how they say if God can’t come, he sends a man. In this case he sent Nestle to help us out. We were lucky to get someone to help us go through an entire system in terms of getting things done.”

Nestle’s agri-team consists of agricultural services and ESG manager Matthew Jardim, logistics and quality control co-ordinator Joshua Ling Chuong, dairy sustainability and quality lead Lenora Kumar, data analyst Kashan Williams and commercial agriculture lead Adrian Sinanan.

They work closely with Thackorie on maintaining the quality of milk by using sustainable and regenerative practices with the aim of turning it into a net-zero farm.

“There are a lot of things that we have to implement, but Thakorie has been supportive in many ways,” said Jardim.

Jardim said the agricultural team aims to assist in the farm's being not only environmentally sustainable, but financially as well.

“We can’t have the farmer spending more money than he is earning. So what we are trying to do as well is speak to the farmers and show them how to maximise their output – to spend less money and make more money.”

He said the technology implemented on the farm improves efficiency and the practices that Nestle teaches farmers increases the cows' milk production.

“We try to reduce the emissions on the farms, so we have things to help with carbon, such as carbon-sequestration initiatives such as planting certain types of grass and trees."

Carbon sequestration is the practice of capturing and storing carbon dioxide to help reduce GHG emissions and combat climate change.

“We also have things that would help to reduce the carbon emissions coming from the cows themselves, through increasing their milk volumes. You will get more milk from (fewer) animals, for a reduction in overall carbon in the farm.”

Kumar said to increase the productivity and yield of the animals, one would have to think about the quality of food

“The practices that the farms use when it comes to GHG emissions include crop management and how you agitate the soil to make forage (grass for the cows). You want to think about how you are going to improve soil nutrition through planting different types of crops. You want to think about biodiversity.”

Kumar said for the time being, the focus is on establishing regenerative practices rather than using technology or machinery. Jardim said some farmers may not be able to afford the technology right now.

“For TT, it is more about improving the efficiency of the farm by engaging in simple practices before moving on to other stages.”

Jardim added that it also requires water management and management of electricity.

“You don’t want anything getting into the waterways, and so (we have to think about) using things like crop fertilisers and insecticides; and with good-quality soil you will have less of a need for chemicals. Water is also able to absorb carbon as well, so if you manage your water resources well, you can also help reduce emissions.”

As for electricity, Jardim said watching how farms use electricity and managing that could also reduce emissions.

“Our energy grid is also fuelled by natural gas, which is a fossil fuel, so as renewable energy becomes more financially feasible, we will try to implement it on the farm as well. Using bio gas is also another method but because of the low cost of electricity it is not financially viable.”

Bio gas is gaseous fuel that is produced from fermented organic matter.

Thackorie uses a combination of both implementing technology and good practices to enhance the output of his farm in a sustainable manner. Along with the new milking machines, Thakorie installed a large storage tank for milk to be stored at an appropriate temperature before carrying it to the collection stations.

He also had drones for land surveying, to monitor the land for crop rotation and other practices.

He also had other machines installed such as a back-scratcher for the cows. All the machinery installed was an investment to increase their comfort – and production.

“If you are talking about one cow giving ten litres of milk and you want 100 litres, you just multiply the cows to get the amount.

"But it is not just about adding the number of cows. If you improve the animals’ nutrition, you may just have to add five, instead of ten. What you put into it, especially with the technology, is what you put out.”

Thackorie added that running the farm requires a significant amount of planning and foresight. While speaking with him in his office on the farm, one could see charts with projections and forecasts for milk, lists for requirements and other charts.

“You always have to plan for everything,” he said. “You always have to have a recipe or a strategy for everything you are doing.

"So we use record-keeping to tell where you are and how you are going along the way, if you are hitting your targets or missing them. That way you could work backwards to correct whatever mistakes you are making.

“Every person, every farmer has their own unique way with how they manage, so it may differ from farm to farm, farmer to farmer.”

A dairy legacy

Priam Singh was inspired by Dr Eric Williams, TT's first prime minister, to become a farmer.

“Eric Williams was a man with vision. It is he who opened this farm, you know,” Singh said with pride. “He introduced dairy farming to TT.”

He said before dairy farming was introduced to TT in the early 1960s, people would use condensed milk or powdered milk.

“When you can’t get your condensed milk to buy, that means you have to drink your tea black. Williams said: ‘A country without food is not a country.’ He went to Switzerland and he saw all the cows. He came to TT and borrowed money from the World Bank and opened the first set of farms in Wallerfield.”

Singh was 16 or 17 at the time. Born and raised in Cumuto, he went to one of the Wallerfield farms to work as an apprentice.

“They said you had to work on a farm in order to apply for a farm. That was the policy. I worked on the farm and I applied and I took from the last set of farms that he developed in 1972.”

He said Nestle began collaborating with his farm in 1973, after his cows were raised to milking age and he began producing. He has been supplying Nestle with milk ever since.

Singh’s farm, significantly smaller than Thackorie's with 130 cows, is sectioned into a calf den, a breeding den and a milking parlour. Unlike Thackorie's, cows on Singh’s farm are milked by hand. The practices taught to Thackorie for soil nutrition, securing proper forage and increasing the cows' nutrition to boost production are also taught to the Singh and Sharmin.

But Singh's farm faces different challenges from Thackorie’s, one of which is land space.

“We don’t have enough land space for foraging,” Sharmin said. “Over the years we have been approaching the ministry to see if we could get more land, but the space we farm in, there isn’t necessarily any more land, because the land next to us is owned.”

Singh’s farm is tucked between two other neighbouring farms, as the entire street was given out to farmers in the early 70s. Behind it is a protected forest area.

Farmers need land to grow the grass they need for foraging. In lieu of the land space, Singh and Sharmin go to other areas to secure forage and when they can’t find enough, they depend on feed.

“We have to use a large volume of concentrated feed to help meet the nutritional needs of the cows. Feed helps supplement the cows’ diet, as well as the heifers’ offspring diet.”

Nestle also helps the farm in terms of sanitation and the animals’ health. Kumar said Nestle works with farmers on fighting a disease called mastitis, an infection of the udder caused by bacteria, which makes the udder produce less milk and a milk with higher bacteria and lower quality.

Kumar said one of the things Nestle noticed while working with the farmers was that they could identify clinical mastitis by sight but not subclinical mastitis which is the presence of a mastitis infection without the tell-tale inflammation of the udders.

“We brought the vets on the farms and did on-the-farm training on how to do testing for subclinical mastitis. We purchased the solution, something called CMT, then we did the testing on the farm. It improved the farmers’ knowledge and it helps them differentiate which animals are able to produce healthy and bacteria-free milk.”

Singh and Sharmin also said water was a major challenge, especially in the past few years, where climate change has taken a significant effect on the temperature.

“Water is very necessary for all farms. That is why we have a lot of tanks. We may need about six more tanks,” Singh said.

“On a hot day one cow can go through 1,000 gallons of water in a half-day. This (number) of cows – which is more than 100 cows – can drink up to 1,000 gallons within two-three hours,” Sharmin added.

Sharmin said farmers are already getting the support they need from the private sector, but needs government support.

“If we get more from the government, we can do more,” she said. “We can get better infrastructure, build more troughs for water and so on. It will help us buy more fertiliser for grass.”

She also called for better support from areas such as the breeding centre and from vet services.

“We need help from the rabies service because of the bats. While our cows are vaccinated against the bats, it is every night the bats sucking them. That in itself is a cost factor because you have to get vitamins to replace that blood and so on.”

Cream of the crop

Nestle buys milk from Thackorie, Singh and other farmers to produce local brands such as Nestle’s Proud Land, which is 100 per cent local milk. Speaking with the agriculture team at Nestle, Business Day was told that about ten-12 per cent of every box of Proud Land milk comes from Thackorie's farm.

Sinanan said Nestle buys milk from farmers at a base price of $3.86 per kg. Depending on its quality, farmers, regardless of the size of their farms, could earn as much as $9.50 per kg through different incentives.

But Nestle does not skim on its quality control. It has to have the right stuff, otherwise it will be rejected.

Kumar said Nestle uses three factors to assess the quality of the milk it purchases for processing – the total plate count (TPC), which is the total count of organisms able to reproduce in a sample of food, the total solids (TS) and the solid non-fats (SNF). The SNF are particularly important for manufacturing full-cream milk.

At the collection centres, Nestle tests for alcohol, which will determine whether the milk is going bad or not, along with the other factors. Once at the factory it is tested further ensuring that the milk processed is of the highest quality.

Kumar said Nestle also helps with training farmers who supply it in order to up their game.

“Nestle has two vets on the team (who) go out on the field and work with farmers, giving them on-the-farm training with best practices toward milking, hygiene and sanitation,” she said. “We try to make every farm align with Nestle best practices. We try to focus on how they clean their buckets, how they clean the area around them. We train them how to disassemble and clean their milking machines, and what type of detergent to use to clean their equipment.

"We also have innovations that we try to implement on the farms.”

Nestle recently supplied its farms with iodine which is used to clean the cows' udders of the build-up of bacteria.

Ling-Chuong said, as far as logistics are concerned, the collections department does its best to make sure none of the farmers’ efforts go to waste.

“At the collection centre, we test the milk on two parameters – TPC and SNF.

“There are a lot of things that can go wrong between transmitting the milk from the farm to the collection centre, but the staff is well-trained to meet those factors.”

“We also have chilling tanks, so even if the milk comes at a certain temperature we maintain that temperature, to maintain its quality. Then we have a control driver who drives along a specific route to have control over the time it takes to get to the factory.”

Nestle also developed an app to help farmers track their progress and their output. Jardim said it also allows farmers to see collection centres that are nearby, a news feed on new grants and incentives provided by the government.

“It allows farmers to see all the information in Nestle’s system,” Ling Chuong said. “Farmers are able to see the quantity of milk weighed at the collection centre. (A farmer) doesn’t have to wonder if his milk passed or failed the tests. He can go back and look at data looking at the different testing factors.”

He said for the time being, the Nestle app gives data fortnightly because it updates the averages per fortnight but the company is working on providing data daily.