LADYSMITH, B.C. – A couple of kilometres away from this dairy farm planes land, golf balls fly over the fence and fish swim in the ocean.
But the Cuthberts don’t feel hemmed in on their Vancouver Island farm. Their 220 acres feels roomy because most of their neighbors have about the same acreage and are long-term residents, said Suzanne Cuthbert.
The nearby Nanaimo airport doesn’t distract their cows and the new golf course backing onto their fields provides their son with a job retrieving lost balls. Otherwise the golfers would be breaking down fences to recover them, she said.
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“This is a pretty normal dairy farm,” said Ben Cuthbert. He is modest because the family has been named the British Columbia-Yukon outstanding young farmer nominee.
This week the Cuthberts will be at Toronto’s Royal Winter Fair as part of a national competition to decide Canada’s top young farmers.
Experienced in dairy
The Cuthberts came to their farm eight years ago. But they were not new to the business having grown up on Island dairy farms and being in a partnership with Ben’s father and brothers.
“We brought 50 cows and 60 heifers here,” said Ben. “That was my buyout – I didn’t take land. And we bought 1,000 litres of dairy quota.”
They now have almost doubled their quota and milk 75 cows, 20 of which have received superior production awards from Holstein Canada.
The Cuthberts bought their farm from the province which had been experimenting with crown-owned operations and tenant farmers.
“We only paid $2,000 an acre for this place and the buildings,” said Ben. “The house was valued at zero because there was no insulation.”
Adds Suzanne: “That was a major point for us. We knew we could come and do the work here. It was mainly cosmetic.”
The Cuthberts needed a new barn which they designed as a free-stall plan for the milking herd. One-tonne alfalfa hay bales are stored in the roof over the cows. The animals all wear transponders around their necks which are linked to a computer.
When they enter a feeding station the cows are delivered a customized portion of the 12 kilograms of grain each gets per day. They are not fed in the milking parlor because Suzanne said they stay calmer when not limited to a certain time period to eat. There is always feed in front of them as well, chopped hay from the surrounding pastures in the summer. Sawdust is underfoot 12 months a year.
In the wet winter the milk herd is kept inside the building but calves spend their first few months in individual plastic sheds outdoors. Thomas, 9, helps by feeding the calves and this year his 4-H calf won several ribbons.
The Cuthberts use artificial insemination and don’t economize on the semen, having paid up to $50 for one dose, mainly from Quebec bulls. Their cows average 75 pounds of milk a day from the 4 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. milkings done by Ben and a hired hand. Suzanne said she milks only when the men are putting up silage. Her big job is the bookkeeping on the computer and she said the best part is punching in a couple of buttons and having the GST calculated easily.
The computer came five years ago and then they added an answering machine, a fax machine and a cellular phone.
The farm buys its barley from a local feed supplier but grows all the forage required. The loss of the feed transportation subsidy didn’t have much impact but the rising price of feed grain did. Ben said it costs $80 a day more for grain today than last year.
This past summer, B.C. milk producers got a price rise. Ben, who was appointed to the provincial milk marketing board to regulate the activities of B.C.’s 800 dairy producers, says B.C.’s milk price is now the same as Alberta’s. But the farm’s economics are still tough.
For retail milk, the B.C. price is cheaper than in the nearby state of Washington, a switch from the cross-border shopping pattern a couple of years ago.
The Cuthberts are part of the 65-member Island Farms dairy co-op which has agreed not to use the milk promoting hormone bovine somatotropin on its herds, even if the Canadian government approves it for use in dairy cows.
Expansion planned
In 10 years, Ben predicts their herd will double in size. The most immediate project they have in mind is to irrigate the alfalfa fields and start selling the excess production to horse owners in the area.
Just to be sure their three children Thomas, Erin, 6, and Natalie, 4, don’t think life is all about work, the Cuthberts try to take some time off for camping but Ben admits official holidays only add up to five days a year. The other family times are afternoons or evenings snatched away from the farm for hockey, music, swimming and skating lessons.
