Munch, munch!

Ulrike Stephan knows a lot about sugarbeet. But dairy cattle? “I’d never have thought that I’d be dealing with cows one day,” says KWS’ consultant for energy beet and feed beet. “Now all of a sudden we’re tramping through cow barns. I find that incredibly exciting.”

Beet in the cow barn isn’t exactly anything new. The sweet plants used to be popular fodder. The grandparents of today’s farmers often had a small patch of land behind the farmyard where they grew feed beet. The cows loved the taste. “It was like candy for them,” says Ulrike Stephan.

But all that involved a big effort: As our beet expert explains, the feed beets had to be cleaned manually out of fear that the soil stuck to them could make the cows ill. And the fact that they grow above ground made them prone to diseases. When corn, a fodder that is cheaper to grow and easier to process, also began to be grown in Northern Europe, that marked the end of beet as feed.

Are energy beets also suitable as fodder?

In the meantime, sugarbeet evolved further as breeding kept on producing new, high-yielding and healthy varieties – including ones like the energy beet that could be used outside the sugar industry. “KWS played a major role in building the market for energy beet by developing means of washing and destoning beets and new methods of storing them,” notes Ulrike Stephan.

But hold on a minute: If there are now methods to clean sugarbeet, might this crop be suitable for use as fodder again? The Business Unit set about looking into that.

Happy animals, financial benefits

A scientific trial confirmed the hunch: The animals ate more because the fodder was tastier. The trial also showed they had no problem digesting the beet if the rations were balanced.

There were also two financial benefits for the farmer who helped conduct the trial. First, adding sugarbeet to the daily ration also increased constituents such as fat and protein in the milk. That brings in more money for dairies, because what they are paid depends on the quality of the milk, explains Ulrike Stephan. Second, it is expensive to buy in concentrate feed and its price fluctuates greatly. In the trial, the farmer was able to save around ten cents per cow and day by growing his own sugarbeet. He has 687 cows, so that adds up to around €25,000 a year.

Skeptical farmers are won over

Nevertheless, farmers remain skeptical. Our consultant Ulrike Stephan and her colleagues have their work cut out to persuade them of the benefits. “We’ve established pilot farms where the managers can pass on their experience to other farmers,” says Ulrike Stephan. She recalls a bus trip KWS offered farmers. “Everyone was interested in the topic, but hardly anyone believed in it.” That changed after the visit. “The talks we had on the way back were completely different. The farmers had been won over.”

Yet the success of feed beet isn’t a foregone conclusion. The consultants Ulrike Stephan, Sebastian Schaffner and Nils Albrecht have quite a bit on their plate in Germany “because farmers who’ve never grown sugarbeet have a lot of questions.” They can also cite further arguments, such as a healthy crop rotation: Farmers outside the catchment area of sugar factories can use feed beet to expand their crop rotations. Farmers who already produce for the sugar industry “naturally know what needs to be done.” Nils Albrecht, who himself was raised on a farm that had cows, also impresses farmers with his first-hand practical experience.

Advertising campaign with cows

Feed beet is to receive a further boost in the coming months. Colleagues will network with fodder consultants and chambers to further reduce misgivings and drive the topic. There will also be internal training. And a new advertising campaign has a witty touch: “You can hear cows munching away contentedly when they are given feed beet because they like its taste so much,” says Ulrike Stephan. And that’s how the latest ad got its name: Munch, munch! |