After that, they abandoned using a frontloader with a wide bucket for silage facing. "That was creating an overhang at the top of the pile about two feet beyond the base," says Brian. "It was unsafe for employees to be on top of the pile." Instead, Brian and his crew fabricated a facing tool themselves to create a clean, straight facing. It is easy to attach to a telescopic forklift, has no moving parts and is much cheaper than buying a commercial product.
"All we needed was a welder, a torch and a band saw," Brian says. "We thought, 'let's go for it.'" The result? Spoilage is next to nothing, maybe 2-3 percent. And the need for inoculants is all but eliminated. That's one chapter of the Medeiros sustainability story.
Three degrees of payoff: Brian and his family are committed to replicating the silage story elsewhere on the farm, from water management innovations to GPS systems used in their cropping operation to energy audits to use of more efficient pump motors to modern feed management software.
Brian, a 2010 graduate of Cal Poly State University, looks at any sustainability innovation in one of three ways: "Economic, social, and environmental," he says.
For the economic measurement, it's simple: what is the window for investment payoff and the start of added earnings? "We normally require a 12-18 month payoff window," says Brian. "Some larger projects will take 5 to 10 years to pay off, even though we see immediate savings." Brian says such investments are self-funded by the dairy. That's another sustainability tenet. "My father started out buying two cows, then two more, then a few more after that. He had 45 cows when he was 25 years old before moving to California. Brian says, "When we want to try something new, we save up for it. Once we have the funds, then we look at implementing the project."
For the social value of sustainability, it's simple: Safety. Protecting worker safety is not just a moral imperative, "it allows employees to be more productive," says Brian. Employees who stay safe and healthy are not worrying about injury every minute they are on the job, and are going to be more productive over the long term. And long-term productivity means sustainability.
Sometimes, it's the big things: Brian's long-term plan encompasses an ambitious environmental initiative: Convert the entire dairy to solar power, incorporate methane digesters for manure management that will also help power the dairy, and eventually process and market finished milk, butter and ice cream on the farm as well. They all combine to create a self-sustaining dairy, reducing the carbon footprint, while also creating new efficiencies that will add to financial margins.
"My dad would say, 'show me the math,'" says Brian of any new process or investment. "That's necessary, of course, but for me, I want to always do a better job because I want to do this job for years and years."
With the Medeiros method, those years likely will turn into decades, even centuries.
