2024-02-28 12:02:00
Bote de Boer and his family play the leading role in the film You can’t milk birds. His country is a paradise for the godwit and the lapwing. But can son Jan Jochum continue to farm here profitably?
“If the bank had said yes to our request to invest in our stable, we would never have sold our land,” says Astrid de Boer firmly. “You are no longer your own boss,” adds her husband Bote. “But there was no other way. The revenue model is not good enough. Our son Jan Jochum also indicates this. Now hopefully he has a future here once more.”
A radiant smile only breaks through in Portugal, where eldest son Marc has started farming. In the movie You can’t milk birds we see how father Bote visits the area where ‘his’ godwits regain their strength before they start their journey north. “Godwit, godwit, godwit,” he entices. “They must be thinking: what is he doing here?” daughter Sigrid laughs.
The same lure in the first shot of the film immediately makes it clear why documentary maker Barbara Makkinga has given De Boer the leading role. You immediately fall in love with that bald man in red overalls, who enthusiastically strolls through his meadows to welcome the national bird.
Moving family portrait
Initially, the film was intended as a nature film, regarding Frisian farmland where hundreds of meadow birds nest. But it turned out to be a moving family portrait that sketches the dilemma of a farmer who loves ‘birds’ and has organized his land accordingly. In the meantime, he struggles to make ends meet.
At the kitchen table, with a wide view of the meadows and images of godwit and lapwing on the wall, Bote (55) and Astrid (53) and son Jan Jochum (21) explain how difficult nature-inclusive agriculture is in the Netherlands. “It can’t be out”, Jan Jochum summarizes powerfully. While the birds thrive in the farmland, Astrid emphasizes. “Farmers and birds belong together.” In fact, good birdwatching should be able to compete with just good farming, says Bote. “But that is not the case.”
Much, much less liters of milk produced by the godwit
With 97 dairy cows on 72 hectares, their company in Tjerkwerd (municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân) is medium-sized. But because they graze part of the time on ‘overgrown’ grassland that contains less protein – Bote waits to mow until following the breeding season – the cows produce less milk: 7,000 liters per cow per year instead of 9,500 liters. “So we lose more than 200,000 liters a year because we have birds,” sighs Bote. “And the compensation we receive is not sufficient, but they do not want to give more because then it is state aid. We are missing 70,000 euros and will only receive a third of that.”
In fact, the company is doing the right thing for too many birds, according to son Jan Jochum. “If our company consisted of approximately 10 to 20 percent bird management, the compensation per hectare would have been reasonable. After all, we can use the longer grass as a source of structure in the ration for dairy cattle. And also as feed for the young cattle and the dry cows that we do not milk because they are on maternity leave,” he explains. But for dairy cows, frequently mown protein-rich grass is good. “Now, 65 percent of the feed for dairy cattle in winter consists of long grass, which means we have to purchase quite a bit of concentrate to keep the health and milk of the cows at a somewhat normal level.”
In the film, Jan Jochum says that he would prefer to go over the land ‘with the leveler’ – an agricultural machine that levels the soil – ‘and then put in good grass’. “I have a little less interest in birds than my father, but not nothing,” he explains. The fact that he also has no lack of love for animals can be seen in the film when he helps a cow give birth on a sunny summer day and then helps the mother to her feet to lick her calf clean.
Astrid understands her son’s resentment, but “we mightn’t bring ourselves to allow things to be different here.” That would make the job easier, Bote realizes. “It used to be normal to level land and turn it upside down, because then it yielded more. There are subsidies available to create bird land once more, but that’s not enough, there must also be good compensation for the income you miss.”
Farmland as it was centuries ago
The old land that is now being sold still looks exactly as it did centuries ago, with buttercups, dandelions, sorrel, narrow plantain and many types of grass blooming in the summer, a high water level in the ditches and regular puddles in the grass. It is a paradise for godwits, lapwings and redshanks: the water provides a layer of mud that is full of insects, food for the meadow birds, while the chicks can duck into the long grass when a bird of prey circles in the air. The meadow birds are now also taking possession of De Boer’s ‘normal’ meadows. “They feel safe here.”
The nature fund buys the 12 hectares with donations from private individuals and leases it back to the De Boer family for a minimum of thirty years. They can now finally renovate the old cowshed, allowing them to bring home the young cattle, which are currently still in a rented stable elsewhere. “We do not invest to grow with more cows,” says Astrid. “Hopefully the cows will produce a little more milk,” Bote adds.
On the way to Friesland, Wakker Dier’s scrapping milk advertisement is unmissable: Dutch cows now produce twice as much milk, which means they are scrapped, the action group says. But for the time being, more milk offers the only certainty of more income; the price of milk has hardly risen in decades. “We are in one large global market and the supermarket chains are really not going to put that expensive stuff from the Netherlands in stores if they can get cheaper milk from elsewhere,” Bote knows.
Not an easy profession anymore
“Being a farmer is no longer an easy job. Now the derogation has created a new problem.” The Netherlands was allowed to deviate from the standard for spreading manure for years, but the European Commission must phase out that deviation (derogation) from this year. This means that farmers have to dispose of some of their manure elsewhere or have it removed and destroyed. And that costs money.
“There is always something to complain regarding farmers, that wasn’t the case before,” says Bote, who took over the company from his father-in-law when he was 27. Is he still milking at the age of 81, just like his own father? “I’m starting to get tired of all those rules.”
The renovated stable does not make the financial problems and gloomy prospects go away, Astrid makes it clear. “According to the government’s controversial nitrogen ticket, we should get rid of half of our cows. That ticket may have been cancelled, which was supposedly a mistake, but the bank will still take it into account.”
Bote takes into account that the phasing out of the derogation might mean that every farmer has to sell off a quarter of his livestock, “because you have to get rid of that manure. So how is the Dutch farmer doing? He doesn’t know what he will earn in the future. Instead of his own manure, he will soon have to buy artificial fertilizer, and we know that it is worse for the soil and leaches into the ditches. Then in five years there will be discussion regarding groundwater once more.”
Astrid: “The impression is given that you will be fine in the future if you are an extensive company. But that is not the case here.”
In that respect, eldest son Marc’s choice seems wise. “He wanted something for himself and has had a company in Portugal for a year and a half, with 330 cows and 3 employees,” Bote says proudly. Friends of the family have been farming in Portugal for some time, Astrid explains. “It’s nice and warm there and it’s affordable. The banks want something and they would like to have young farmers there. Our third son Jonathan also wants to become a farmer there.”
The film ‘You Can’t Milk Birds’ can be seen in cinemas across the country from Thursday
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