Grass-Based Dairy Model
The New Dairy Concept
Joe Tomandl, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in central Wisconsin, is founder and executive director of the Dairy Grazing Alliance. Joe and his family own and operate three grass-based dairy farms, each milking approximately 170 cows.
Joe and his family’s decentralized model of farming is called the New Dairy Concept (NDC.) It’s a replicable model that includes pooled products, improved efficiencies and workforce training. It showcases how managed grazing farms, with the right level of investment financing, can be scaled with integrity and succeed. It could be implemented by farmers nationwide as they create or react to market demand.
Here’s how it works: 500 cows are divided into three different 170-cow farms, which allows the animals to get 50% of their daily feed requirements from fresh pasture where they graze. Because the farms are in close proximity, they can also efficiently and consistently supply value-added markets with truckloads of milk.
Currently, NDC includes three beta farms, and will eventually be scaled to 15-20 farms with several thousand cows, within a 20-mile radius. This expansion would allow cows significant access to grass each day, versus having all cows at the same location with 100% of their feed delivered to them.