Share and Voice: Schiefelbein Farms

The above video is a brief documentary created last year regarding the history of Schiefelbein Farms - my family's farm back home.  I thought this might be informative for you since this whole post is regarding the farm I grew up on.  Just a side note, everyone that is in this video I am related to in some form - Frank Schiefelbein, who is interviewed, is actually my brother (people say we look alike)!


A few notes about my family's farm: 

• The farm is currently in the top five largest farms in the state; and about 22nd nationwide.
• The size of the farm extends to approximately 4,000 acres.
• We primarily raise beef, particularly black Angus cattle.
• There are an estimated 3,100 cattle head; 600 are cows and calves, 2,500 are used for meat

What inspired this post was the documentary we recently viewed in class on Monday.  After viewing the class video I really began to wonder, 'What precautions does my family's farm take in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly?'  So to find some answers I decided to contact my dad, Frank Schiefelbein, III who gave me a brief overview of what farms may do to be more environmentally friendly.


"When it comes to feeding the cows," said Frank, "We tend to let them roam about the fields and graze on the grass, and this may occur from the end of spring and into the beginning of winter (depending on when snowfall arrives).  The land they graze on is land we purchased that is typically known as having 'too many hills' or 'too rocky.'  Since our family's profession is farming we can actually afford to purchase land that has been labeled as 'eroded' and replenish it so that we use it as pasture land for the cattle or use it to grow crops."  Frank went on to discuss, "1/4 of the acres the farm owns are 'out of production,' which means that we do not use them and allow grass to grow in this area and the areas are rotated every year."


"Now once winter arrives, obviously, it's difficult for us to allow the cows to graze on grass so we then feed the cows bi-products.  These bi-products are often used by companies and then discarded so what we do is purchase the material that would be discarded and feed the cows.  The discarded materials are not harmful or 'bad,' the companies simply do not need them for their product and thus just discard them.  By us purchasing those bi-products we are able to purchase them at a discount rate and it also produces less waste for the environment.  Bi-products we use are 'wet-distillers' which derive from plants containing alcohol, these are known as 'wet-distillers, once the alcohol has been taken out."  More bi-products used include corn-gluten (a syrup often left-over once it's been used for pop) and sweet corn silage (made available by vegetable processing plants)."  


"We have also begun to use something called 'Earlage.'  This is where you take off ears of corn and chop them up.  What's great about this technique is that it does not really involving a combining tractor and no use of propane is used at all."  Frank went on to mention that once they have gone through the fields the cows then come through and graze the residue.


"Another  precaution we perform has to do with the cow's manure.  We actually collect the cow's manure and place it into a confinement barn, which we collect and store all winter.  Once it comes time to fertilize the land we use the cow's manure to naturally fertilize instead of purchasing pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.  We conduct a more 'natural' process and it seems as if it continues to work in a circle, where we harvest the land to feed the cows and the cows give us the fertilizer to harvest the land."


I know it seems that most farms are really harming the environment, though there are some farms that are trying to do their part in preserving the environment.  As health educators, we can use farms similar to Schiefelbein Farms to encourage other corporations to consider switching over to a more 'green' approach when it comes to farming.