The author is an Israeli dairy expert on a long-term mission to Poland.
It's cold, very cold, here in northern Poland! Just now we're beginning to see the ground that was buried deeply under the snow for five long months. Months of short, gray days and long, cold nights.
At the beginning of 1997, I was sent, with my family, on an agricultural mission to the north of Poland by MASHAV (the Center of International Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and CINADCO (the Center for International Agricultural Development Cooperation of Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development). The project, designed during a 1995 visit of two Israeli specialists to Poland, focussed on: Improving the family dairy farm, and promoting the use of advanced technologies. Through this project, I have become the first Israeli agricultural expert to serve in a long-term mission to Poland.
In a small village called Stare Pole ("Old Field") in the Elbag region of northern Poland, some 60 kilometers from the coast of the Baltic Sea and about 100 km southeast of the large, modern city of Gdansk, sits the heart of the Cooperative Polish/Israeli Dairy Project (CPIDP), in an advisory institute that is a branch of Poland's Agricultural Extension Service. There I live in a small apartment and work in the CPIDP office. Every morning, as I walk to work, I glance up at my nation's flag, which flies year round in front of the institute, think warm thoughts of home and feel pride in my mission here.
Since 1989, the fall of communism, Poland has made constant progress, although there is still a long road for this country to traverse in order to reach the level of Western countries. About 30% of Poland's nearly 40 million people live in rural areas, and 20% of them work farms. Of this 20%, only 10% market their products while the others consume what they produce in a subsistence type situation. About 70% of all agricultural areas are privately owned and have for many generations passed from father to son, creating a strong connection between people and land.
Poland is a large country (about 320 thousand km2) with a low population concentration except in a few large urban centers such as Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan and Gdansk. Agriculture is based on the production of cereals, rape seed for the purpose of oil, sugar beets (in this market Poland is one of Europe's leaders) and fruit (mainly apples and pears). Also, there are vast forested areas used for wood harvesting. Predominantly large, sparsely populated areas of Poland are used for grazing and because of this Poland distinguishes itself as a real milk empire.
Officially, about 12 billion liters of milk are produced per year in Poland, but unofficial data suggest production is actually double this with products finding their way to the market through channels other than the official dairy production centers. These unofficial channels prove detrimental to the delicate balance that the European Union wishes to establish. Poland is scheduled to enter the EU in the beginning of the 21st century, but the agricultural pricing system suffers as a result of government policies developed to push Poland toward an open international market. Prices farmers receive for their products are extremely low.
Most milk in Poland is produced on the numerous small farms, concentrated in the east and south of the country. These farms average less than 5 cows and an area of less that 5 hectares. Only 25% of all milk in Poland is produced on large farms (defined in Poland as having 15 or more cows) which are more frequently found in the north and west of the country. There are three main reasons for this uneven dispersal: first, better soil and climatic conditions in the north and west (i.e., the buffering effect of the Baltic Sea, fertile deposits of the Vistula River delta, and the area's flat topography); second, Western cultural and technological influence, and third, the area is abundant in former state farms that were created when, under communist direction, private farmers were forced to nationalize and combine their many small holdings into a larger unit (like the kolhoz and sovhoz in Russia). These were again privatized after communism and persist as large, often more successful farms.
Most cows reside in very small cowsheds, frequently attached to farmers' houses. There they are tied in the same stall for all the long winter months to eat, drink and be milked without the ability to move. Equipment is often old and has been in existence since communist times. In many places, cows are still milked by hand, but the most common equipment facilitates milking by machines that milk to small portable buckets. Less than 30% of milk producers in Poland have a cooling tank on their farms (a feature necessary in modern dairy production). During the five summer months the cows graze freely, and either they are brought to the cowshed for milking and supplemental feedings or they remain in the fields where they are milked with portable machines. The process of modernization has meant that many farmers have been forced from production into an inescapable cycle of poverty and unemployment. Dairy farmers, too, suffer from this forced withdrawal from production due to financial problems, in particular the expense of new equipment.
In Poland there are about 3.5 million dairy cows with yearly yields averaging 3,500 liters with a high solid state content (over 4% butter fat and 3.4% protein). Most of these cattle are a black and white variety often more than 75% Holstein Frisian. Less than 28% of the Polish herd is under inspection of the Herd Book. This book represents international standards, but unfortunately varies between different regions, and making the inspection is far from the exact and careful process I remember from my childhood in Israel. Veterinary and artificial insemination services were privatized after communism and now veterinarians who live and work in villages, rather than experts in insemination alone, perform a large percentage of inseminations. This creates problems because, success as an inseminator comes only from experience. Also, we can still find bulls used for natural insemination on too many farms.
The Institute where the Cooperative Polish/Israeli Dairy Project makes its home boasts excellent facilities. There are meeting and lecture halls complete with hi-tech educational equipment. There is a field laboratory for analyzing soil, animal feed and cereal quality. Also, there is a small hotel that serves the travellers on the busy road connecting Kaliningrad, in the east, to Berlin, in the west. Under the Institute's jurisdiction are eight regional offices spread throughout villages and small towns in the region where advisors, who also live in these villages and towns, work. Agricultural advisors give advisory services to farmers on all topics, from fertilization in the field to designing animal rations to bank and credit issues and more, but only some 15% of farmers benefit from these established advisory services.
The basic idea behind our project activities was the transfer of Israeli know how to farmers and advisors. We hoped to accomplish this by adapting practices to the conditions that exist in Poland generally and in the region specifically, and not by copying practices in Israel. The main subjects of study and activity chosen by a 1997 team, including the directors of MASHAV, CINADCO and the animal husbandry department of the Ministry of Agriculture, based on my half year of experience in the area were as follows: a) feeding and feed preparation for dairy farming, b) udder health and the production of high quality milk, and c) on-farm information collection and its analysis (all this using modern Israeli techniques and technologies).
The program was accepted by both sides and included bringing three vertical mixing wagons (for mixing cattle rations) from Israel and establishing their use in project villages, improving the feed laboratory at the advisory institute, purchasing educational equipment for use during courses and conferences, implementing methods for collecting data and recording them at the farms, and establishing an operational program for udder health and the production of quality milk in cooperation with the regional veterinary laboratory for that subject. Also, the program included a plan for several courses on the subjects of the project, either by experts from Israel who would teach on-the-spot in Poland or by sending delegations of advisors to study at CINADCO's center in Kibbutz Shfayim. We sent 20 advisors to Israel for study periods of one month and 15 directors and political leaders for short visits in recognition of their work and for deepening their connections and contacts in commercial arenas. None returned home less than fully impressed with the developed reality that exists in Israel and the Holy Land that is so important for Poles (who are on the whole Catholics).
After many visits to the farms in the region, 11 farms in three villages were chosen. The smallest farm has 15 cows (plus heifers) and the largest 30. Farm owners agreed to cooperate and fulfill project requirements. They would share new equipment and knowledge (an act that was difficult because of the strong tradition of self reliance!). The project also required that they record day-to-day information for study and drawing conclusions. All this is accomplished with the help of the local advisors responsible for agricultural extension in these villages. All farmers make routine milk inspections, and rely on artificial insemination. All have close veterinary collaboration and all have modern cooling tanks for the milk. Half of the farmers milk through an upper milk line which carries milk directly from the cow to the cooling tank and half of them milk to a bucket which must then be emptied by hand into the cooling tank. Upon later evaluation by project directors and workers, the need was seen for tractor loaders and grass cutters on project farms to help the implementation of the new methods. Also, it was decided to improve the milking machinery of farms in accordance with the possibilities of our remaining budget.
From the start, it was clear that getting the mixers into the small cowsheds would be impossible. Thus the wagon's efficiency in delivering feed directly to cows after mixing would be lost. But the main goal here was to establish the technology of TMR (total mixed ration) which we have found the most adaptable in all aspects to the conditions which exist here - the mixed ration would be pushed, later, by wheelbarrow to the feeding troughs inside the cowshed.
The mixer travels every day from farm to farm and produces the mix (an event that causes village life to pause and observe the show) of feed. Most of this feed is grown on the farms. We still do not yet contemplate the possibility of establishing huge mixing centers that prepare mixes for all of an area's farmers, as exist in Israel, because of the large quantities of roughage, the complexity of preparation and Polish tradition (i.e., reluctance to cooperate and lack of trust in modern technology). This demands of the farmer very hard work through all the months of spring and summer, while cows are grazing, when he is producing all the winter feed for the cows rather than simply purchasing it.
We improved the feed laboratory by purchasing new equipment (fiber analyzer which tests for ADF and NDF, a modern spectrophotometer for analyzing metals and minerals, and electronic scales), and a computer with new programs which are used to accumulate the data of the analyses and produce results for comparison and analysis (the former method of recording and analyzing by hand used kilograms of paper). We introduced methods to estimate the energy values of feed, differing from that which was here before the project (which used a Russian unit equivalent to 1kg oats) and also we sent the director of the laboratory, a doctor of chemistry, to a course in Israel.
Due to significant differences in rainfall (Poland receives around 600 mm of rain plus snow) and thus feed moisture in Poland compared to that of Israel, often feed was difficult to harvest. Then, after it was harvested, it proved difficult to dry and ensile. We've learned to adapt modern practices to the Polish environment. Through cooperation with Polish researchers and by applying the vast knowledge that has been accumulated here concerning pastureland, we began laboratory grass analysis every 10 days during the grazing season. This indicates how the cows should be moved among plots and how their grass ration should be complemented with other feed. Essential to this aspect of the project were guided tours and demonstrations in the field, visits to laboratories, workshops and theoretical lectures.
We studied local methods of preparing rations for the animals, discarded these methods and introduced methods used in most European countries. For planning the ration, we adopted the use of a computer program for feeding dairy cows that was translated into Polish especially for the project. This was installed in the computers at the advisory center and in the regional offices. During a specialized computer class conducted by an expert from Israel, participants were trained to use this program to create computerized feeding ration.
On the subject of udder health and milk quality we developed a program of monitoring the project farms which included seasonal bacterial tests for each quarter of the udder and somatic cell tests. We taught the principles of proper mechanical milking, the maintenance and hygiene of the milking equipment, the steps of milking and treatment of the udder from the beginning of milking to the end, including mandatory dipping of the teats in antibacterial solution at the end of a milking (a method common elsewhere, but still not practised here). We taught the importance of the dry period (when the cow gives no milk) and its length and established a program of using intermammary antibiotics during the cow's dry period. We challenged the farmers, as well as ourselves, to improve milk quality because, beginning in 1999, the classification of milk quality was considered as one of the parameters when deciding the price for which milk would be purchased. In general, high quality milk contains fewer than 100,000 bacteria per milliliter and fewer than 400,000 somatic cells per milliliter. But due to conditions of production and storage, even in this cold country (cold being less conducive to bacterial growth) only about 30% of the producers achieve those results.
In the future, dairy processors will cease to accept milk not of the highest quality for use in production for human consumption. So, improving milk quality is considered a vital improvement and an important step toward compliance with EU policies. With EU entry looming, Poland seeks a countrywide milk production quota (which does not now exist) of 16 billion liters but, EU officials, to date, have agreed only to allow a quota of 8 billion liters.
Some of the preliminary conclusions of the project are:
1) In choosing the main goal of transferring knowledge, educating and advising were most important because these will be left behind for the future generations while equipment in one way or another will become obsolete in time.
2) The main feed that exists here in large amounts is green grass and it should be the base for prepared silages and hays for the winter which are prepared using the best methods. Corn silages seem to be a failure, even when using developed hybrids imported from northern Germany. A growing season length of 200 days that quickly shortens with low temperatures and heavy rains leads to a moist and poor quality product with less than 28% dry matter in the best scenario. Dry matter is extremely important as it can account for 45% of the entire ration. Thus the more dry matter in a grass the better it is as a feed. It is clear that summer grazing should be closely monitored, both quality and quantity of the grass that is eaten, and should be complemented with other feed.
3) The use of the mixing wagons will be made efficient in this part of the world only when we find budgets for modernizing and enlarging buildings, making it possible to deliver feed to the cows directly from the mixer. Also, there is no doubt that changing to free stalls (that is, not chaining cows through the winter) will also improve output.
4) On the subject of udder health the solutions are simple if only they are implemented. Farmers must first implement proper hygienic procedures. Additionally, high milk quality will be achieved when we are able to install milking parlors. These changes will no doubt come, though it is difficult to predict. I can only say with certainty that Poland is a milk empire that will surely rise to her potential at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Nearing the project's close, we realize that we have been fortunate to receive many experts to assist in the project, as well as high profile guests simply to observe the good things happening here. We've benefited from visits of other Israeli experts: an expert who helped develop the practice of advising and established a method of collecting and analyzing data; an expert who demonstrated operation of the mixing wagons in the project farms and taught proper operational procedures and routine service of the wagons in the relatively extreme conditions which exist on small Polish farms; several experts from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture who taught courses at two different times in Poland; a veterinarian on a herd health advisory mission; and an architect to plan the first steps of improving the buildings and cowsheds on project farms. Israeli Ambassador to Poland Yigal Antebi, accompanied by his wife, visited the project in the summer of 1998, during the annual agricultural exhibition which the advisory institute hosts (around 30,000 visitors). The CPIDP is the pet project of the Israeli embassy in Poland and we receive a lot of help and support from the embassy.
On the private side, I visit a lot the farms and am friendly with the farmer's families. I always receive a warm reception. On weekends, I travel the few hours by train to Warsaw where my family lives. Thus, my life here is full of action.
From my teachers I learned not only dairy husbandry, but the importance of sharing knowledge and technology across borders throughout the world. I feel pride in knowing I have been a part of the team that opened the CPIDP, thus establishing an Israeli center for education and the advancement of milk production in Poland. The CPIDP has received much recognition since it began here and has touched far more than just project farmers in the three villages.
Now I wait, a month or two, until I can look from my office window upon fields, now covered by glistening, white snow. They'll have changed by then to a brilliant green. A small girl with two braids and sandals will pass under my window to take the cows out to the pastures to graze and I'll take comfort in knowing I was able to serve in a mission that will change her future for the better.