Brought to you by Limagrain
Various construction plan for dairy cattle
Dairy farm 'Het Lentink' owned by Ramon Hesselink and his family is located in the characteristic bocage landscape in the northwest of the Achterhoek. Ramon is a creative entrepreneur who looks for opportunities and continuously develops his company accordingly. He looks for a balance in milk, cycle and economy.
Ramon took over 'Het Lentink' from his parents-in-law in 2017 and steadily expanded it. He now milks 125 cows on 119 hectares of land, part of which is arable. "When a neighbor retired, we were suddenly able to lease an additional 30 hectares, which made us a lot more extensive. I asked myself: how can we make that land as profitable as possible? I didn't want to grow an excess of grass and corn, because I then became too dependent on the roughage market."
Concentrates for dairy cattle
"We set up an arable farm to make the construction plan flexible, without a grassland requirement. I chose 9 hectares of starch potatoes because of the stability in sales. On the rest we grow concentrates for dairy cattle: Tundra winter field beans, summer field beans in mixed cultivation with wheat, winter barley en winter wheat. We use the land at the dairy farm for silage maize and grassland, part of which is in ANLb management packages."
Gold in cap
Within the regulations, Ramon's strategy is working out well. "The ANLb reimburses a nice basic cost and in the new CAP we come up with something extra one-year field edges out in gold. It is quite a puzzle every year, but I do get satisfaction from it. Where necessary, I call in helplines, such as ForFarmers, Groeikracht and Robert from LG."
Rest crops
A passion for feeding the cow and the soil well, is how Ramon puts it beautifully. "The concentrate crops of winter grains and field beans are wonderful dormant crops for the soil, after which the land is free again early to sow grass clover. These are very valuable secondary yields from these crops. It is also a great feed, the ground field beans and grains provide enormous nutritional value. Previous Every year we grew 20% of our concentrates ourselves."
Appreciation
Ramon is still full of plans. "We continue to fine-tune within the regulations to do everything as well as possible. A deep litter is still on my wish list so that we get more solid manure. And if we manage to grow some milk, we will be in balance again. I have good I hope that appreciation for us as a food producer will return. It is now so one-sided, everything cannot become nature. I think we are looking for a new balance and as an entrepreneur I try to move along."
Ramon puts a lot of energy into the crops he grows. "To harvest good yields and quality, you have to work on it. Labor is a limiting factor, which is why I use the contractor for a lot of peak work. He has good permanent people who now also know my plots well. But I don't send them out. path without having to look myself."
silage maize
Silage maize is a stable energy source in the ration. Ramon grew the LG 17 and Meluseen varieties on 31.219 hectares. "I have been choosing LG for yearscorn varieties due to the high cell wall digestibility in combination with a good starch yield. All plots will be under-sown or re-cropped with winter grain, because I refuse to have to do calendar farming."
