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With 420 dairy cows (not counting young stock), the Gansbeke family’s farm is a sizeable family farm. The more than 4 million litres of milk produced are used for both the farm shop and delivered to Olympia. We spoke to brand-new father & member of the Green Circle, Yannick Gansbeke, about the company, the investments made and those that might happen in the future.
In 2014, the Gansbeke family decided to invest in expanding their barn. “It was an expansion in which, together with my father, I very consciously made a number of choices to make farm management easier and more sustainable. For instance, for the new barn area, we invested in a full floor with manure sliders. We were already interested in a pocket digester at that time. But at that time few new Biolectric installations were being put in place in Flanders, so we waited a while.”
Some additional systems were also installed in the barn to increase cow comfort. An automatic Python straw distributor with 3 lines, as well as a shower system for hot summers and 8 large fans that provide extra cooling and ventilation. Furthermore, the automatic bedding system ensures that the thick fraction of the separated manure is spread into the cows’ bedding beds. And at the front of the old stable area, you can find a manure robot.
This robot was specially purchased to take care of the area where the dry cows walk. “We only run the robot when we are also in the barn ourselves. The reason why we chose a robot for that particular section is because we want to avoid a newborn calf being pushed along on the floor by the manure scraper when the cow surprises us with calving.”
In addition, the family would also like to install some milking robots in the future. Because this does save in labour time anyway. “Currently, we milk the cows ourselves and with 3-4 people, this takes about 6 hours a day. Surely that is a serious time investment that we want to reduce over time. And automatic feeding of our cows is also still on the list of possible investments. Especially as we are interested in putting a larger Biolectric digester in the future. This would allow us to generate even more electrical and heat energy, which can then be perfectly used by the automatic feeding system.”
Furthermore, time will be continuously put into optimising the number of litres of milk and key figures. “My father and grandfather expanded the farm from 2 to 420 dairy cows in the last half century. So it is now up to me to further improve the milking performance of the cows.”
Qua onderhoud is alles gemakkelijk te combineren met het dagelijkse werk op de boerderij. ‘On maintenance in general, I don’t have much work. Every day I spend 5 to 10 minutes checking the installation. And every 400 hours I change the engine oil once. For what I save in energy and manure costs, that investment in time is more than worth it.’
The technology has proven itself on the farm for more than 7 years. Meanwhile, the investment has been fully recouped. “If I were faced with the same choice again, I certainly wouldn’t hesitate.”
Circular agriculture and a short chain are at the heart of the Gansbeke farm. To that end, the pocket digester is used for power and heating, among other things. “On top of that, the party room and the farm shop, operated by my sister Esther, my mother and Annelies, also make use of the generated energy.”
The digestate remaining after the digestion process is used to fertilise the 120 hectares of maize fields. We get good results with that, as the nitrogen is more easily absorbed by the plants, compared to non-fermented slurry.
“To date, we have really only had positive experiences with our Biolectric installation. We get a lot of schools ourselves who respond positively to this investment in sustainability. That is why we also see it as our task towards Agriculture, to point out the positive story to the community.”
