About This Episode
Chris Barron records at Norm-E-Lane in Chili, Wisconsin, right after the first meeting of a new peer group. Josh Meisner is a third-generation dairy farmer running 2,600 milk cows, 2,200 young stock, and about 5,000 acres of crops to feed them, with 36 employees plus himself and his dad. The dairy made its big jump in 2000, going from 400 to 1,000 cows, then grew to its current size over the following seven or eight years.
Jerod Schmidt heads up crops, data, and equipment. He describes 2019 as a scramble: heavy winter kill on forages, a first planting date of May 16, more than four inches of rain over one weekend, and a 45-acre corn replant on July 11 because they needed feed and he still had corn in the planter. Both men went in nervous and unsure what a peer group would deliver, and both came out saying the accountability from the other operations is what will push them.
Meisner was the only dairy in a room of crop farmers, and found that even members with beef and hogs knew almost nothing about dairy, which made the exchange run both directions. Barron cites a consultant's figure that 800 Wisconsin dairy operations closed their doors that year. On transition, Meisner's father has his plan finished, which means Meisner now has to start thinking about a fourth generation, and he says there is really no excuse for dairy families to skip that work.
“You go from not knowing these people at all, we meet, and now we leave today and everybody's hugging and kissing each other like we've known each other for 10 years.”
— Jerod Schmidt
Key Takeaways
Norm-E-Lane runs 2,600 milk cows, 2,200 young stock, and roughly 5,000 acres of crops with 36 employees.
The dairy went from 400 to 1,000 cows in 2000, then grew to its current size over the next seven or eight years.
2019 brought heavy forage winter kill, a May 16 planting start, more than four inches of rain in one weekend, and a 45-acre corn replant on July 11.
About 800 Wisconsin dairy operations closed their doors in the year of this recording.
Every decision runs through cow comfort and consistent quality feed, which is why the cropping side sits in the same peer group.
Meisner's father completed his transition plan, which immediately put Meisner on the clock for a fourth-generation plan.
Full Transcript
Narrator: And it all comes down to this. 2 on, 2 out, bottom of the 9th. The Farmers lead by 1. Full count. Here comes the play at the plate. And it's the Ag View Pitch.
Chris
Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today I'm here with an interesting operation in— where are we at here with Josh? We're in Marshfield, Wisconsin, and we just got done with a peer group meeting with a group of operators up here and host operation. Josh, give us a little introduction to yourself and your operation. You just got done hosting a peer group meeting and tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your farm. And then we've got another partner here we're gonna talk to here in a minute too. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Josh
Meisner: Sure, yeah, Josh Meisner. I am a third-generation dairy farmer from central Wisconsin. And very excited to be part of the event that we just did here the last couple days. Yeah, like I said, third-generation dairy farmer, grew up dairy farming, and Grandpa and Grandma started the whole thing. And after college, I decided that I wanted to continue farming, so I came back to the farm, and we farm, farm, grew for, you know, many years as I was growing up. And when I came back, we decided that the family was growing and the farm needed to grow as well. So we expanded the dairy and kept expanding our acres and kept getting better. And here we are today, I guess.
Chris
Barron: Sounds good. Well, thanks for the introduction. I'm gonna get back to you here in a second, but I want to introduce your partner in crime here. Jared, give a little introduction to yourself. You kind of run the crop operation side of the business. So Josh is kind of on the dairy side and you're kind of on the crop side. Give us a little intro here.
Jerod
Schmidt: Hi, I'm Jared Schmidt. I work with Josh at Normy Lane at Chili, Wisconsin, and I head up the crops and the data side and the equipment side of the operation and got a real good group that we work with. And yeah, and we just partook in first go-around of peer group meeting and wow, what an experience.
Chris
Barron: So yeah, so talk a little bit about that. Jared, uh, you feel like you got enlightenment a little bit on some things, or maybe there's some things you got confirmation on that you guys are doing right, and maybe some things for improvement?
Jerod
Schmidt: Yeah, I think both. Um, some things we knew, but now, now with having them put out there in front of us, it's— they're gonna— the rest of the group's gonna hold us accountable to make them better, where we can normally maybe walk away and not address someone put them off, they're gonna keep us in check and push us.
Chris
Barron: What'd you think, you know, for your expectations of a peer group, this being, you know, a brand new group, the first meeting, how, you know, from your expectations and what you thought was gonna happen, did it meet expectations? Is it similar to what you thought was gonna happen, or what's your takeaway?
Jerod
Schmidt: Yeah, I actually was really nervous going into it and actually had no clue, really. And it's crazy, you go from not knowing these people at all, we meet, and now we leave today and everybody's hugging and kissing each other like we've known each other for 10 years. It's just amazing.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, Josh said, I didn't get a kiss, you know, but yeah, no, you're right. I mean, it was fun watching the people that were all complete strangers when we got together 2 days ago to the point now where everybody instantly feels like they're best friends. And if you needed something, you got 7 other, 6 other operations that would be there in a heartbeat for you if you needed something.
Jerod
Schmidt: Oh, for sure. I mean, it's just amazing how that plays out. And just kudos to you to be able to see that in people. Yeah, you got a real gift for doing that.
Chris
Barron: Well, thanks. But I think it's a tribute to the folks out here in these operations that were here and just want to get that message out that, you know, we can work together in agriculture and we can take care of each other. And I think we're all going to be better for that. Josh, what was your take on the meeting? What were your expectations? What do you think after being, you know, being through it? And the interesting thing for you too that I want to throw out there, is, you know, you're in a dairy, a lot of the operations in this group are crop farmers. And so they came in here, maybe not knowing as much about dairy as probably you thought maybe they would.
I mean, you know, it's kind of, you kind of expect a regular consumer to not know that much about dairy, but here's, you know, 5 or 6 other farm operations that were just like in awe of the sophistication level of your operation and all the details and all of the things you do. Talk a little bit about what you thought of the meeting and a little bit about how you thought it turned out.
Josh
Meisner: Yeah, yeah, it actually surpassed my expectations. You know, we've a very, very good group of progressive young farmers here. So as an industry, we've always been pretty good at helping each other. And I've been part of a few peer groups before, but this one was very unique in that way that, yeah, we were the only dairy farm. And you take it for granted that people in agriculture know what dairy farming is, but yeah, it was kind of an eye-opener to see the interest in the group here that they wanted to learn, and they did not know hardly anything about dairy farming for the most part. You know, there were some in animal, egg, that did beef and pigs, but yeah, nobody had any experience with dairy. So it was nice to be able to provide that for them, and it was eye-opening. For them and me as well to know that, to kind of realize that.
Chris
Barron: Right. Tell us a little bit more about your operation. Obviously a dairy operation. Again, we're in Chili, Wisconsin, but, you know, tell us a little bit about the scope of the operation and the family involvement in your organization and employees. And the thing that impressed me about your operation is how important the cow care is and, you know, taking care of the people, taking care of the cows. I think a lot of times the consumers really don't have a really good grasp of, you know, the cows are part of your family. I mean, it's just literally you live and breathe that. So talk a little bit about what that means to you in your operation.
Josh
Meisner: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, we have 2,600 milk cows is where we're at right now. So that's, That's a lot of cows, but, and then running about 5,000 acres of crops to feed those cows. So 36 employees total on the farm, and then, you know, and then a couple of myself and dad who was still involved in the operation as well on top of that. So, so yeah, the farm obviously grew throughout the years. Like I said earlier, growing up And, uh, in, in 2000, we, we kind of made the big jump expansion and we went from 400 to 1,000 cows at that time. And over the next, uh, 7, 8 years kind of grew, grew slowly from there to the current, uh, to the current size we are today. So, so yeah, 2,600 cows, 2,200 young stock, um, and 36 employees. And, and obviously the, the people are the key to, to making that all work.
Rely heavily on a lot of people, a lot of good people do a lot of good things on the dairy end of things. And the cows are number one, you know, we got it, we got to take care of the cows. If we don't, if we don't take care of the cows in the best possible way, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna have a profitable business. It's not gonna work. So, so every, every decision we make is, is based around, based around that, you know, cow comfort, consistent quality feed, which encompasses the cropping end of things. So that's why we were, you know, that's why we're part of this peer group because we, you know, we do have both ends of that and it is directly tied together and they both got to work. So yeah, a lot of good parts to everything.
Chris
Barron: Cool. Tell me a little bit about, you know, the challenges in the dairy industry right now. When you, when I know we were interviewing one of your ag consultants that you work with, and the comment was made in Wisconsin alone, there was 800 dairy operations that closed their doors this year. What are you doing to stay viable and making yourself able to survive? And, you know, and how do you plan to progress and to continue to move forward and beat the odds of the challenges that the whole dairy industry faces right now?
Josh
Meisner: Yeah, yeah, that's the, that is the sad reality of it. And there's, there's many farms that are not surviving right now. And, and in order to do that, there's, you know, there's different ways to do it. But, but in our situation, you know, we, we—
Chris
Barron: but you're the, you're the end result back to the dairy. You're the, the food and nutrition supplier for the operation. So talk a little bit about your, your spring you had and the challenges there. And then, you know, what are you doing to to make sure you get the right nutrition back to the dairy.
Jerod
Schmidt: Right, so yeah, 2019 has been a challenge everywhere on the cropping side, all over the U.S., and we're not immune to that. We started on May 16th, was the first day of planting. We had come out of winter with a really large winter kill on forages. So we, we had some scramble mode to try to come up with crops, and it's still a scramble mode. We're, we're still planting crops to try to produce forage as the summer progresses. And we just got some big rain events, over 4 inches over the weekend, another half inch yesterday afternoon that caught us by surprise. And but, but overall, our corn is looking good. It's going to be staged all over the place because it I actually replanted 45 acres July 11th, which is silly, but I had corn in the planter, we need feed, and so I hopped in and replanted a spot on our very last field that we planted in June.
But we're really managing, we rely on a lot of our consultants, and we're really managing the crops that we are growing to come back and produce milk. So, so good healthy crops and a lot of work, and hopefully, hopefully Mother Nature gives us a little break this fall to help get them in in a good timely fashion.
Chris
Barron: So you bet, we'll see. You bet. So I guess kind of the last thing I was thinking, maybe just ask you a little bit about, you know, we've been talking about transition with a lot of the farm operations, and one of the strong points of your guys' operation is you already have a pretty well thought through transition plan. But a transition plan is a living, breathing process, right? And so, you know, a lot of the farms in this peer group were like, wow, you know, it's awesome that you even have a plan. There's so many operations out there that are working on it, but it's tough. It's a tough thing to do to figure out. One comment you made that I thought was interesting is your dad did a great job, but, he's got his transition plan done. Now all of a sudden, instantly, you probably need to be thinking about your transition plan as well.
So what do you, what do you think about those comments and where you've been in the transition plan? If there's any advice that you would give anybody or anything, or thoughts or comments on transition, any comments or thoughts on that from your perspective?
Josh
Meisner: Yeah, no, unfortunately many, many dairy farm families across the of the nation do not have those plans in place or don't even think about them. There's been a lot of work within the industry done to help that, and there's individuals out there that can help, you know, help you with that. So, you know, so to not do it, there's really not an excuse, I guess. It's not easy work. It's not things that, you know, a lot of families want to do, but it's very, very necessary. So yeah, we're in a pretty good place that way with you know, with myself and Dad. And yeah, this, what I told the group was, it's kind of scary that my kids are getting up there in age now where I got to start thinking about that for fourth generation. So kind of crazy, but it's reality.
And it's a good place to be because you know that there are more family members coming up that hopefully are going to continue the farm.
Chris
Barron: That's right. Time flies when you're having fun, right? It does.
Narrator: Yep.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, any last comments that you guys have, Jared? Any wisdom or any takeaways from the peer group meeting or anything? I know we like to, at the end of the meetings, go around and just have everybody kind of give a takeaway. If there's something that you got out of the last couple of days, is there anything on the top of your mind that is something meaningful that kind of adds value that people might appreciate?
Jerod
Schmidt: Oh, just the camaraderie that just developed so fast, um, and the information that they're able to share with us that, you know, they're just— it's really exciting. You know what I mean? I could foresee people talking this afternoon yet or tomorrow, you know, just to connect that you made it home. And, you know, emails are going to be going back and forth. And, um, yeah, it gives, uh, you know, it's been a stressful trying year, and it puts some spring back in our step to, you know, perks us back up to try some things and, and try to get this season to be a success yet.
Chris
Barron: And so awesome. And sometimes as farmers we feel like we're on an island by ourselves, and correct, we, we don't have to be. So any final thoughts, uh, Josh, before we wrap it up?
Josh
Meisner: Yeah, some, uh, similar what I told the group, I guess. It just, it confirms confirms why I love this industry. It's just the industry is about not only animals and agriculture, but it's about people. And like I said earlier, this industry has always been very good at that, helping each other, and this meeting definitely confirmed that. So it was a very good event, placed a lot of value in the group, and it's gonna— I think it's gonna continue down the road to create a lot of value for all the members of the group. So awesome. Yeah, glad it was put together.
Chris
Barron: Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, guys. We again sincerely appreciate you hosting us up here. I think everybody enjoyed the drive up here. It's beautiful country up here, the trees and the crops, you know, especially if it was, you know, the middle of June instead of the middle of July, the crops look awesome, you know, a little behind, but really, really sincerely appreciate all of your hosting of the peer group up here and beautiful country and great job, guys. And we appreciate it. And we will catch everybody, uh, the next time here on the Ag View Pitch. Thanks a lot.
Narrator: Thanks for joining us on today's episode of the Ag View Pitch. As always, you can reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com or duanel@netins.net. We'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.