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Rock-Nobles cattlemen prepare for state tour

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Hills host aims to share message of sustainability and efficiency in beef production
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By
Lori Sorenson

Brad Van De Berg’s cattle feedlot near Hills is among the best and most innovative in southwest Minnesota.
That’s why he was asked to host one of the eight stops on this summer’s 40th Annual Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association Summer Beef Tour July 13.
The event travels to different parts of the state each year, and this year the Rock-Nobles Cattlemen’s Association is showcasing beef production in southwest Minnesota.
It’s an honor to be a tour host, but it requires a fair amount of preparation in addition to spending an entire day with the expected 1,200 people on 15 tour buses.
So why do it? Van De Berg offered two reasons:
•He wants to share information about beef production the same way others shared with him in his earlier years, and
•He wants to share the message of human animal care and sustainable farming with those who may not understand agriculture.
Van De Berg’s operation features a 900-head capacity slatted barn, a unique 95-head capacity shipping and receiving barn and bed pack barn with sick pens.
He added concrete to existing cattle yards to create feed storage for his operation that buys cattle at 850 to 950 pounds and has them on feed about 180 days before they go to market.
He said his feedlots are large enough to make a living and to offer opportunities for the next generation.
“I want the operation to be big enough so my kids can come back,” he said.
 
Learning and teaching
Getting to this point, he said, required a great deal of learning — much of it from others in the industry.
“As a beef farmer you’re always looking for a way to do things a little bit better,” Van De Berg said. “And every farm has one or two things that you like and figure you can do on your own operation to make it more efficient or better.”
He grew up on a dairy farm north of Beaver Creek and worked at the nearby Bakken feedlot after graduating from college.
“I started working for them shortly after college, and they’re the ones who taught me how to feed cattle,” Van De Berg said about Richard, Peter and Jay Bakken.
“I do it totally different from the way they do it because my yard is different, but I kept a lot of things I learned from them. That’s where my enjoyment of feeding cattle came in.”
Once he started his own cattle operation near Hills, he made it a point to keep learning, attending workshops and beef tours that other cattle producers were willing to host.
“I guess I’m trying to repay that,” he said
 
Sustainability and efficiencies
Van De Berg said he also hopes to talk on the tour about efficiencies that have made his and other local farms environmentally sound and sustainable.
“In general there’s a lot of misinformation about agriculture and animal agriculture in general, and if we get people that are not in the ag industry on the tour, I would really like to talk to them about what we do,” he said.
“As farmers in general, we get viewed as not sustainable, and that is the farthest thing from the truth.”.
A key illustration at Van De Berg’s operation is the combination of precision manure application with strip-till planting.
“I produce enough manure, and I use all that manure on all my acres,” Van De Berg said. “And we get it to where it’s just the right amount — I only have so much and I want to spread it across everything.”
He strip-tills grain farming with his dad, Vern Van De Berg, and the manure is placed precisely underneath the seedbed for maximum benefit.
“Basically, I hardly buy any commercial fertilizer,” he said. “I can produce enough corn to feed my cattle, and I produce enough manure to feed all my corn. And we do it with very little fuel or tillage, because it’s strip till, and there’s very little erosion.”
While he’s pleased with the results, Van De Berg said he can’t take credit.
“It’s something I learned from some other guys in Rock County,” he said. “There’s a network of us, and we learn from each other.”
 
Animal care
Van De Berg said he’s also eager to show how well cared for his cattle are.
“You hear about animal abuse and big corporate farms … I’ve got cattle in every pen where I pet their ears in the morning,” he said.
“They’re such a part of my life that you’re with them all the time and walking pens, and when it’s bad weather — too hot or too cold — I’m spending the majority of my time with the cattle, making sure they’re comfortable.”
While he and his wife, Melissa, have invested heavily in their cattle operation, they’re raising their three young children in a modest home on the acreage.
“My wife will joke that we built a mansion for our cattle, and we don’t live in a mansion ourselves,” he said. “I would like to get the point across, how much we care for our animals.”
 
Fifteen tour buses,
eight ‘innovative’ stops
Other stops on the July 13 Summer Beef Tour include:
•Binford Feedlots (Grant and Eric Binford), northeast of Luverne, features bedded barns, slatted barns and modern feed commodity facilities.
•G&A Farms (Glen and Matt Boeve), Steen, features outdoor lots and a unique wastewater handling system with dewatering and pivot irrigation.
•Dave Mente, Adrian, features the tour’s only cow/calf operation. It will highlight rotational grazing and local seed stock display to illustrate genetics of breeding bulls.
•R&R Thier (Ryan Thier), Rushmore, features outdoor yards and bedded and slatted barns.
•Summit Lake Livestock (Russ and Brian Penning), Wilmont, features a unique hog-finishing barn converted into cattle slat facilities.
•Brake Feedyards, Wilmont, is a multi-generational Brake family feedlot operation
•3B Farms, Adrian, is a multi-generational Bullerman family slatted barn feedlot operation.
Fifteen tour buses will depart at 7 a.m. from headquarters at the ice arena in Worthington to the farms, where they will spend about an hour talking to the producers and viewing the facilities.
The event is for anyone who wants to board a bus and view the local operations, according to Jay Bakken, Beaver Creek, president of the Rock Nobles Cattlemen’s Association.
“It’s open to anyone, from fellow farmers to the local priest and hairdresser,” Bakken said. “You don’t have to be a farmer or involved in the beef industry to attend.”
On the way to each stop, video footage from each farm is broadcast on the tour buses.
“We have a lot of producers doing innovative things here,” Bakken said, “and we’re going to see top-notch feedlot production enterprises in this part of the state.”
All buses will stop at the Magnolia New Vision facility for a noon meal, and then return to the ice arena in Worthington at 5:15 p.m. for an evening steak supper.
Summer Beef Tour registration information is at www.mnsca.org or by contacting Bakken at jsbakken918@gmail.com.

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