From a machine co-operative to a professional arable farm
HSH Agro stands for efficient, professional arable farming and a continuous development. But this has not always been the case. Farm manager Thomas Madsen explains which steps have been taken to achieve this and what challenges the Danish farm still has to face.
The HSH Agro farm site is situated about 5 km east of Hadsund, directly on the Mariager Fjord in the North Jutland region. The proximity to the Baltic Sea involves quite a number of challenges. As the fields are almost at sea level, they often are under water. A situation that is aggravated by increasingly heavy rainfall in spring. “I can no longer tell what would be a normal amount of rainfall. There is no such thing as normal anymore“, farm manager Thomas Madsen describes the situation. As a result, the time windows for working in the fields become shorter and shorter.
The origin of HSH Agro was a machine co-operative. In 2000, the three owners Havnø, Strandkar und Høgholt started to jointly use their machines, but they still issued invoices to one another. This constellation required a lot of agreements and organisation and resulted in lengthy discussions about the cultivation of the fields, thus often prolonging the decision-making process. To simplify these processes and to become more professional, they finally merged their fields in 2018 and the three farms became one large joint farm that at that time farmed approx. 1,000 ha.
The way to professionalisation
For the 2019 season, Thomas Madsen was hired as a farm manager. Right from the start, his objective was to become more efficient, to question and optimise processes. Before that, the three owners had hardly defined any strategy. In the meantime, this has been improved with the help of a consulting firm. “We want to raise the level – from a farmer to a professional agricultural farm”, Thomas points out. As a first step, fields were merged and made larger, and rotation was adapted and expanded.
When Thomas Madsen started working at HSH Agro, the farms were used to conventional cultivation methods. It initially took him a lot of persuasion to convince the owners of new methods. Now most of the land is cultivated without a plough. By purchasing additional farmland, almost 2,200 ha are currently farmed with 10 permanent employees. Unlike many farms, the employees are no seasonal workers but have a safe job all-year round. “It is important that the guys know their stuff and have a certain routine. Thus, we can avoid mistakes and increase efficiency. This is extremely important, especially as the farm grows and distances increase”, Thomas emphasises. In order to keep the people employed during the winter, HSH Agro also carries out contracting tasks for other farmers.
The farm manager attaches major importance to the fact that his employees are farmers and that they are identified as such. “They really know what they are doing. They do not just drive a tractor, they also contribute their agronomic know-how.” And they pass on this know-how to the two apprentices that are currently employed at the farm. They are involved in the processes and can use in practice what they have learned at school. The apprentices can switch between different farms during the period of their training to receive new impressions and get to know different situations.
Challenge in the field
To cope with the challenges that come along with wet fields, the fields are levelled with a scraper. This is to prevent water from gathering in ditches in the field and to make it run off at the field boundaries to avoid damages to the crop. The soil is moved until the fields are even. The HSH Agro employees also carry out works with the scraper or drainage measures for other farms.
Spring usually is very wet in the region. “To see what the fields are like, after the winter, we start with the 5m Terrano and carry out one pass around the field. The advantage is that we get an immediate impression of the condition of the field. This step helps us to assess everything much better in practice than from the office where with regard to rain or the weather we can only look at pure data. If the situation allows for it, we start with the 12 m Terrano to work quickly and efficiently.”
Seeding speciality
This spring, 640 ha of spring barley was sown with a Focus 6 TD after the fields had been prepared with the Terrano. In Thomas Madsen’s opinion, the purchase of the Focus TD was an important step towards reducing the use of the plough. By saving passes, the Focus also provides many advantages with regard to the short time window that is available for working in the field. In addition to barley, HSH Agro also grows wheat, rye, maize and grass. In the future, beans and peas are to be included in the rotation.
When sowing spring barley, the simultaneous under sowing of grass is a “Danish speciality“ which is used on about 200 ha. Barley is sown at a depth of 3 cm and in every second row of the seed grass. This is why seeding has to be very precise. Barley is harvested in the first year and the grass which achieves high yields in the region in the following year.
Some of the fertiliser is applied while seeding with the Focus. Fertiliser application is carried out according to the Robin Hood method, i.e. a site-specific, demand-oriented redistribution of nutrients in the field to achieve an equalisation of low-yield sites by means of fertilisation.
In Denmark, there is a lot of demand for straw. At HSH Agro, about 30 % of the straw is removed from the fields. Part of it is used to heat the farm premises and sold to a biogas plant. Farms that have specialised in the cultivation of carrots also need a lot of straw to cover the vegetables in the fields in winter. Despite the demand, Thomas Madsen does not want to remove any more straw from the fields as it is also important for the soil structure to ensure fertility and thus good yields. The straw is needed on the heavy soils and is mixed in for seedbed preparation. To create a better structure, straw for sale is often only taken from the middle of the field as the headlands are often used for manoeuvring the machines. This is also the case in wet springs. As there are many livestock farms in the region, liquid manure has to be spread even if the fields actually are too wet. The results are destroyed headlands. The objective is to counteract this.
Efficient solutions
Thomas Madsen told the Danish HORSCH sales partner Weko Agro that he wanted a solution that allowed for applying slug pellets or seed grass while seeding. Without further ado, Weko Agro installed a DuoDrill on the Focus as the present MiniDrill was not available at that time. This solution was directly communicated to HORSCH. Moreover, to be able to fill the Focus directly at the field boundaries with fertiliser and seed, the machine was equipped with a crane. “An important aspect with regard to efficiency“, he explains.
Regarding efficiency in the crop care sector, the farm has been relying on a Leeb PT for several years. Thomas Madsen bought the first PT shortly after he started working for HSH Agro. This PT has already been replaced by a more current model that after this season will have worked approx. 50,000 ha. This is the reason why he already thinks about buying a new one.
Continuous optimisation
In the past, often only wheat was grown on the fields that now belong to HSH Agro. The result: resistances to pesticides. “A diversified rotation is an investment in a good, solid farm. You cannot only look at what achieves the highest profit. We have to go back to the basics. In the past, there was a lot of rotation on the fields of our ancestors as, in addition to arable farming, they also kept livestock and needed the harvest as animal feedstuff. With the increasing availability of chemicals, it became too easy”, Thomas explains.
In total, HSH Agro evaluates, changes and adapts a lot. “We ask ourselves a lot of questions: What are we spending money on? What works well? What can be improved?“ To gather and analyse data, HSH Agro works with a GPS based system every machine is equipped with. Everything is integrated in this system (fields, track planning, tramlines etc.). This is where Thomas Madsen can review the working hours of each machine and how much time is spent travelling on the road. When analysing the data, it becomes evident in which regions the machines on average take longer for the same tasks or how the harvest will turn out. This is the basis on which he concludes where it will be profitable to purchase more land.
HSH Agro’s objective is growth. This includes building a new farm site which is located more centrally to reduce the distances and the time the machines spend on the road. Moreover, new facilities for the employees and an office will also be built. “I want to create an optimum workplace for all employees. For only as a team we can achieve our objectives and improve constantly.“
Thomas Madsen has started a Facebook account on behalf of HSH Agro in order to find the necessary staff. “I want to show what we do and why we do it. Of course, I can only explain it superficially. But, thus, our farm will not only get the attention of people from the agricultural sector but also from those who are not involved in agriculture.” In addition to attracting new employees, he also hopes to improve the image of agriculture in his region.