News

Nobis Dairy receives sustainability award

The Innovations Center for U.S. Dairy has recognized Nobis Dairy Farm as one of three Outstanding Sustainability Farm Award winners.  Ken Nobis farms with his brother Larry in St. Johns, just north of the state Capitol.  He says on their 1,050 cow dairy they’ve tried to do what is right, including conservation tillage.

“We’ve always tried to make improvements from one year to the next in milk production, crop production, and environmental issues.”  He says, “We never did it with thoughts of sustainability in mind.”

Nobis says they’ve bedded cows with sand since 1974.  And, in 2009, they started to separate the sand and organic solids with a reclamation system.

“We’re reclaiming over 95 percent of the sand, so we have a savings in sand purchases and also we don’t have as many gravel trains running up down the road delivering sand.”  He tells Brownfield, “In that process we’ve also eliminated about 3,000 loads of manure running up and down the road to the fields because now that we’ve taken the sand out of the manure, we can apply it with a dragline.”

The fourth annual 2015 U.S. Sustainability Awards recognize seven farms, businesses and partnerships for their economic, environmental and community impact.

AUDIO: Interview with Ken Nobis (5:06 mp3):