ISU's Dairy Farm Tour

We had a great time this morning at Iowa State University’s Second Annual Dairy Farm Tour! Our journey began by traveling just south of Ames and ending at the 887 acre dairy facility. The farm’s grounds were scattered with people, both young and old, all excited and ready to take advantage of this June Dairy Month celebration. A public viewing area was available upon arrival, followed by a tour of the farm, a stop at the childrens’ discovery center where several fun activities were open, as well as free dairy product samples. Not only that, the weather cooperated beautifully with hardly a cloud in the sky.

Upon leaving, we couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride in how the Central Iowa community embraced June Dairy Month! With Iowa’s 1,910 dairy farms and 4.3 billion pounds of milk produced annually, it’s no wonder.

Iowa State opened the farm just a few years ago in 2007. It is used for teaching, research and outreach activities.

Special thanks to all of the event sponsors for their support -- the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers, Midwest Dairy Association, Iowa State Dairy Association and the Iowa State Dairy Farm.

"Live Life Lely"

"Live Life Lely"

We at Lely hope you are familiar with the above way of life, either because you currently own Lely's innovative products or are intrigued by our vast product line. If "Live Life Lely" isn't in your vocabulary quite yet, we look forward to introducing you to our extensive range of products, all well-matched to the needs of our modern cattle farmers and contractors.

Beginning with our first Lely machine, the finger wheel rake, it was Cornelis and Arij van der Lely's specific aim to build machines that would alleviate heavy physical labor on farms.

Today, we continue our mission to be the company in the dairy and cattle market that is the front runner in state of the art farming solutions, striving for improvement of the financial and social well-being of its customers.

It's important to us that our farmers understand Lely's history, mission and way of life. Therefore, we want to share with you a video recently released by Lely that we trust will leave an impression about what it's like to "Live Life Lely."

Enjoy!

One Hungry Planet

Farmers work long, hard hours.

Numerous advances have been made in the industry to make the world's food supply safer, higher quality and better for the environment.

We are well-aware of the above statements but a new video is now available to help spread the word in a fun (and yes) modern way!

BASF released the video via their YouTube channel, highlighting American agriculture since 1950. We're so impressed with this video, One Hungry Planet, that we can't help but pass it along to everyone we know.

So, click on the video below (if you haven't already) to see what we're talking about. We hope you are as eager as we are pass it along to your family and friends ... and thank a farmer!

Agriculture and Social Media

Social media. It's become the "catch all" term for our connection to anyone, anywhere, any time. Oh, and did we mention that it's connecting people all over the world and in real time? It sounds pretty impressive, but what does this new way of communicating have to do with our jobs and livelihood?

Let's take a step back.

It wasn't so long ago that cell phones became the "new norm" and could only send and receive phone calls. We had to use a phonebook, full of hundreds of unbelievably thin pieces of paper, to look up a phone number and "good luck" if we needed to find a number outside of our phonebook listing!

Today we toss around words such as, blog, tweet, "like" and "follow" ... it's almost become our new, universal language.

So, back to where we started.

What does this new way of communicating have to do with our jobs and livelihood? One must think there's something to it since the Library of Congress began documenting each and every public tweet in March 2006.

Michele Payn-Knoper, Principal of Cause Matters Corp., has some helpful insights when it comes to agriculture's interest in social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The following is an excerpt from Michele Payn-Knoper's website.

Why should agriculture care about social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube? It’s really quite simple. Because the rest of the universe does and there certainly is a face being put on the agrifood business. If you’re not at the table, you can’t be a part of constructing that face – nor can you counter the misinformation campaigns. My research clearly shows HSUS, PETA, Sierra Club, Greenpeace and other activists working against ag are growing their communities nearly 40-fold in a year’s time. I believe we have a responsibility to provide perspective to counter the misinformation and be a voice in the conversation.

Food is an extremely hot issue – and it’s time for agriculture to leverage that through social media leadership to influence public opinion, rather than react to rhetoric. How are you willing to do that? It’s time to add a new tool!

Click here to visit Michele's website and learn more and social media's importance in the world of agriculture.

Fitzgerald Inc. Enters Into Agreement to Become Lely Center Dealer

Lely has announced it has entered into a marketing agreement with Fitzgerald Inc., a leading milking equipment company headquartered in Elkader, Iowa. As part of the agreement, Fitzgerald, Inc. will have exclusive rights to sell and service Lely robotic milking equipment in Northeast Iowa.

“Many areas of Iowa are a key dairy farming markets for Lely, and we’re extremely excited to be partnering with Fitzgerald Inc. to bring our state-of-the-art Astronaut A3 Next robotic milking systems to dairy producers in this region,” said Peter Langebeeke, president of Lely USA Inc. “Fitzgerald Inc. is dedicated to providing dairy producers with high quality innovations and first class customer service. These qualities make Fitzgerald Inc. a perfect fit for our Lely Center Dealer network.”

As a Lely Center Dealer, Fitzgerald Inc. will sell the Astronaut A3 Next robotic milking system, as well as handle installation, maintenance and service calls with Lely-certified technicians.

Mike Fitzgerald, owner of Fitzgerald, Inc. said, "We believe Iowa is an ideal market for robotic milking. The Lely company gives us great confidence in experience, quality, and technology and we are excited to be a part of a dairymen's dream of cows milking themselves!"

The Astronaut A3 Next is the most recent automatic milking innovation from Lely, entering the market just three years after the Lely Astronaut, which to today’s date has remained one of the most advanced milking systems in the marketplace.

“At Lely, we are continually striving to improve our state-of-the-art technology to improve dairy producers’ financial and social wellbeing,” said Lely USA’s president, Peter Langebeeke. “We are proud that the Astronaut A3 Next does both. The A3 Next consumes significantly less energy and water than competitive brands. The use of first-class materials, combined with a limited number of moving parts, ensures a long lifetime and a significantly higher trade-in value. By paying attention to energy costs, Lely is also introducing an outstandingly sustainable product.”

Since first introducing the Astronaut robotic milking system 17 years ago, Lely has installed more than 9,000 Astronaut robotic milking units worldwide and secured its position as the world leader in robotic milking systems.

“Each day, over 1.2 million milkings are done by Lely robotic milking systems,” Langebeeke said. “That’s important for a number of reasons, but the most important in our mind, is that on each operation where those automatic milkings are taking place, a dairy producer has the freedom to focus on other aspects of his/her farming operation, to spend time with family, to rest with the knowledge their cows are in good hands. We’re proud to partner with Fitzgerald Inc. to offer more producers the freedom they’ve earned.”

Blesy Farm featured in The Post-Journal

The below is an excerpt from a recent story featuring the Blesy Farm on post-journal.com

More than 19,000 pounds of milk is produced each day at the Blesy Farm south of Springville.

What's amazing is that the farmers who work there can do it without laying their hands upon a single cow.

Thanks to four Lely Astronaut robotic milking systems installed on the farm in September, the cows practically milk themselves - some as many as four times a day.

The 1,200-acre farm is co-owned and -operated by Harold Blesy and his son, Nathan. While the process of getting the cows acclimated to getting up and walking into an automatic milker was trying at first, cows now line up for their turn in one of the farm's milking devices - which more resemble a contraption out of a science-fiction movie than anything one would envision would be inside the normal-looking red barn at the end of Henrietta Road.

''Cows might act stupid, but they are creatures of habit,'' Harold Blesy said. ''You put them out in this environment, and they go in, they get milked, and they are happy.''

Click here to read the full article.

June Dairy Month

June Dairy Month is a great time to pay tribute to our dairy farm families. We know you work hours on end to provide our nation and our globe with a healthy, wholesome product.

You can join the June Dairy Month conversation this month by sharing your favorite dairy recipes with others, engaging in conversation about your dairy via social media, or by attending a dairy event!

According to Midwest Dairy™ Association, June Dairy Month started out as a promotion to help distribute extra milk when cows started on pasture in the warm summer months. Today, its rich history continues, with communities, companies and people from all over the country observing June Dairy Month in a variety of ways. In the Midwest, dairy farms and families often open their gates to visitors at breakfasts and tours, while stores and other business feature dairy products. Learn more about June Dairy Month and gain access to hi-res downloadable graphics at Midwest Dairy™ Association's website.

Are you sharing a dairy message via Twitter? Remember to include #JuneDairyMonth in all of your June dairy tweets.

And, if you are looking to cool down, try this delicious recipe, found at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board’s website.

Strawberry Smoothies
Servings: 6

Ingredients:
2 cups strawberries,* cored and halved
2 containers (6 ounces) strawberry yogurt
1 cup vanilla ice cream
1-1/2 cups milk

* You may substitute any fresh fruit.

Cooking Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender. Cover and blend until well-mixed (about 30 seconds).
Pour into 6 glasses and serve immediately.