The Chilean dairy industry wants to double production over the next 10 yrs to around 4 billion L. They have only been exporting a small % of dairy products since 2003 but want to increase that to 50% which, they admit, will expose them more to fluctuationg world prices and may infact drop the price paid to farmers. I question why they would want to go down this path but they seem to think that dairy production is the best use of the farm land particularly in the southern half. We were impressed with the farms we visited here but again they were all in the top few % in terms of either size or production. As was the case in China they do have access to cheap labour but unlike China the Chileans seems to value all their workers, help them to increase their skills and in return the workers take pride in their job. To me this was one highlight of the farm operations in Chile.

Thank you Robby Zeissig for helping us to plan our dairy adventures through Chile and hooking us up with some awesome contacts such as Sebastian Decap, Pablo Loaizac and Ricardo Ferrando.

Today we visited the Valdivia Campus of Austral University to learn more about the trends of the Chile dairy industry and had a tour of their beautiful campus (not sure how the students get any work done there!). After a rather super-sized lunch at an old german brewery, we headed to Marafra farm where they are milking 1600 cows on a fully pastured-based system. It was a farm we could relate to quite well, except the farm looked like a postcard and the grass had volcano ash on it!

The new pasture that we’re standing on in the photo is a blend of Banquet and One50, which is a very common blend down here and worth a mention seeing as though PGG Wrightson Seeds are a major sponsor of the iDairy Project! Should also mention that this pasture only went in 80 days ago and has already been grazed by their heifers! This place can really grow stuff!

Today we completed our tour of Ancali farms in Chile, today we visited the Hefier rearing part of the farm and as per yesterday we were certainly not left disappointed! Again KPI’s and bonus’s were structured as a management tool for weight gain on Hefiers. The farm sends 300 pregnant Hefiers to the calving farm every month in top condition! And in return gets 300 yearling calves to again start the process! Very impressive rye grass based pastures and checking Hefiers on horse back! With 2500 Hefiers on the 11000ha with all hefiers on average gaining 1.2kg per day on ryegrass!

Today in Los Angeles (Chile)we visited a extremely impressive farming operation that had it all!!! Everything from 6500 cows doing up to 12000lt, maze silage stacks as big as football fields, Triticale crops so thick that u could not move in, pivots as far as the eye could see, calves in top condition from day one in a simple well managed system, 4 rotary milking shed and a big team of workers and manages that really did no how important there job is in the context of the big business! All owned privately!! Most people would already be thinking that something of this scale would lose site of the smaller things and loose efficiencie, no KPI’s and lack attention to detail!! NO WAY!! Not this place. So much so that they go to the extreme of milking the colostrum cows 6 times a day!
What a amazing experience, Thanks to all the crew at Ancali.

Has anyone seen a large brown duffle bag floating around a Chile airport somewhere?? If so give me a call because it’s mine!

At least didn’t take me long to work out what I was going to wear this morning!

Supposedly they have found it and it’s on it’s way to me but that’s as far as the information (or my spanish) goes!

A day off today for the iDairy group so Ty and I took the opportunity to sample some of the local produce on an “Uncorked” wine tour to the Casablanca and San Antonio valley’s. We had an excellent full day tour with our personal guide, Jose, visiting 4 wineries and tasting 15 different wines. Highly recommend!

Back to business tomorrow though with a morning visit to the Agriculture Department government office then an afternoon flight to Concepcion.

Wine tasting in the San Antonio Valley

The Vina Indomita winery we visited in the Casablanca Valley