Wednesday, 29 August. Prairie Farms Dairy. Dubque, IA.

      Today on our third day of our tour , the first stop we made was at Prairie Farms Dairy. Prairie Farms Dairy is a fluid milk processing plant. It started out as a family operated dairy , called Swiss Valley, but three years ago they were bought out by Prairie Farms, which is a producer owned cooperative. They are third largest plant of the six Prarie Farm dairies.

      Prairie Farms Dairy processes milk and packages it into cartons and plastic jugs.  They make the plastic jugs on site, which is more efficient than shipping them in.  They also put milk in to a variety of  milk cartons.  Products that come out of the plant are white milk , chocolate milk, strawberry milk,  orange juice and they even make lemonade in the summer time. 40,000 gallons of milk are processed per day which come in on 25-36 trucks.

      The milk processed at this plant only comes from dairy herds which are not given hormones. 275-300 employees are employed at this plant. They each have different jobs, ranging from making the plastic jugs, filling the milk into the jugs,  truck drivers, the people who are in the cooler loading the milk. We all enjoyed out tour of the plant , we got to see how everything works and how the milk is  processed and packaged. Something that we were all shocked off was how much different their price in milk was compared to ours. 1 gallon of milk is around $3 or a little over. To end out tour we got to sample some of their milk.

Clasey Kirkland

Tuesday, 28 August. Wetherby Cranberry Farm. Warrens, WI.

For our third stop today we toured Wetherby Cranberry farms in Warrens Wisconsin. The cranberry farm was started in 1903 and has been family owned and operated ever since. They have approximately 1000 acres of land but only grow cranberries on 110 acres. Along with the whole family working on the farm they have two full time employees and during harvest time they hire an additional 12 people.

 Our tour guide Mike explained that cranberries grow essentially like a vine which have small offshoots that root into the ground. The part of the plant that forms the berries is called the upright. A good crop of cranberries will have approximately 5-6 berries on the upright. The fields in which cranberries grow are referred to as beds; each bed is approximately 3 acres in size. The cranberry harvest starts the first weekend in October and will run for about 3 weeks. To harvest cranberries they flood each bed and drive a machine overtop of the cranberries to loosen them. Once the berries are loose they float to the surface, then are corralled to one corner of the field and are extracted from the water to be processed. For cranberry farmers yield is measured in barrels, each barrel is 100 pounds. An excellent crop of cranberries will run 150 barrels an acre and the return for one barrel can fall between 30-50 dollars.

One third of their production will be packed and shipped as fresh fruit and the other two thirds are sent to be made into juice for Ocean Spray. The tour of Wetherby Cranberry farms was really interesting because cranberries are not commonly grown in Ontario. Also it was neat to see how farming practices for cranberries are so much different compared to soybeans, corn and wheat. All in all it was well worth the visit to Wetherby Cranberry farms.

Alex Zelem

Tuesday, 28 August. Rosendale Dairy, Rosendale WI.

      Our second stop on August 28, 2012 was at Rosendale Dairy in Rosendale, Wisconsin. Rosendale Dairy is currently milking 7700 cows and is the 7^th largest dairy farm in the states. They have 4 farms totaling 21000 cows and the one was visited is on a 100 acre lot, including barns, manure, feed and pavement.  The barns are ¼ mile long and 400 feet wide with several groups of 300 cows each. They are grouped this way so that when being milked the cows only spend 45 minutes away from their stalls. Rosendale Dairy calves at a location an hour and a half north of the home farm. The cows are checked every half hour for signs of calving, resulting in about 25 calves a day. Every cow is put in a separate pen to calve out and when they have they get to lick to calf clean then the calf is moved to a calf pen and tube fed colostrum. They are shipped to the calf barn within 24 hours.

     One barn feature is that Rosendale Dairy uses sand bedding to make the cow as comfortable as possible since they want them to lay down for 14 hours a day. They recover the sand and only have to add 15% of new sand when they re-sand the pens every two weeks. Another feature is the fans along both sides of the barns. The left side pulls air in while the right side pulls it out to keep air moment going and to keep the barn cool as well as the air conditioning wall (water and air running through metal membranes).

     Rosendale Dairy feed for about 12 hours a day in total including mixing, feeding, and pushing feed in. They top the feed off 2 or 3 times a day and the feed gets pushed in about 8 times a day. They make up to 40 000 pounds of feed 4-5 times a day. Rosendale Dairy owns 2000 acres and rent it all out. They buy all their feed in.

     The cows get milked in a set of 80 cow rotary parlors. They are in the parlor for 8 minutes in total and out of their pens for a total of 45 minutes. Rosendale Dairy ships out 80 000 gallons of milk per day in 13 to 15 milk tankers. Rosendale Dairy was an unreal experience and I would strongly recommend taking a tour if you every get the opportunity to.

Lieke Kuijpers

Monday, 27 August. Rushing Waters Fishery. Palmyra, WI

At the Rushing Waters Fishery we learned about all the stages of raising rainbow trout and what is involved in this process.  We started this tour by looking at one of their outdoor trout ponds and talking about how big the trout have to be on average before they are collected, cleaned and sold.  Some of their ponds are covered with shade cloth to keep the water cooler and minimize stress on the fish.  They feed a high protein pellet to the fish to maximize growth to their full potential. They bring in fertilized eggs 4 times a year and raise them in concrete tanks inside their hatchery.  When the trout first hatch, they will live on their yoke sack for the first 3 weeks then they are started on a small palatable pellet.  It was at this point where he described how they move the fish and clean the ponds as well as how the water is brought into the ponds and hatcheries. Nearing the end of the tour he showed is the smoke house where they smoke trout as well as salmon that is bought in. We ended the tour up at the shop where we saw the equipment that they use to clean the fish and small facts on when this business started.  Rushing Waters Fisheries also allows the public to fish from one of their ponds;  if you want they would clean your catch for a small fee. 

 by Kayla Vanden Braak                                                    

Monday, 27 August. Growing Power Inc. Milwaukee, WI

Growing Power Inc, is a non profit organization whose goal is to provide fresh, affordable food in low income neighbourhoods.  They manage over 200 acres of garden plots around the city of Milwaukee, many of which are within city limits.    They provide training, demonstration and technical assistance to help establish Community Food Systems which help people grow, market and distribute food.

  We visited their greenhouses and store on Silver Springs Dr. in Milwaukee which is a prototype for a Community Food System.  Sustainable production is a big focus of Growing Power.  Solar panels provide power for the complex, and compost is their main growing media.  Waste food is provided by businesses in the city, which is vermi-composed on site and used to produce vegetable greens, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, beets, cucumbers, melons and herbs.  Rainwater is collected in tanks which are stocked with talapia and perch; this water is used to water some of their crops (aquaponics).

Monday, 27 August. Chicago Board of Trade. Chicago Il.

The first stop of our trip was the Chicago Board of Trade. After 20 minutes of walking through downtown Chicago trying to navigate through complex street lights without getting hit or separated, observing the buildings, interesting people and informative signs like “3000 people are hit by cars every year in Chicago” we made it to the Chicago Board of Trade safely.

               When the Trading began at 9:30 with the ring of a bell all the brokers and speculators instantly started yelling and giving hand signals so fast it seemed almost like chaos. Things would happen so fast it was hard to make out the details about the number of contracts and their prices. I can’t even imagine how crazy it would have been down on the floor back when all the trading was done face to face instead of now when only 10% of the trading occurs face to face.

               It was very interesting to see how things actually happen and work when farmers use hedging to reduce price risks for the future sales of their crops. 

Michael Goudy