Behind the Burger
Created by the New Mexico Beef Council, we are telling the stories behind the beef in New Mexico.
Behind the Burger
The Dairy-Beef Connection: Inside Route 77 Dairy with Joel Van Dam
Joel Van Dam, a third-generation dairy farmer from Route 77 Dairy, takes us behind the scenes of modern dairy production and its surprising connection to the beef industry. With 4,200 dairy cows and a newly acquired ranch, Joel bridges two agricultural worlds with innovative thinking and deep family roots.
The conversation explores "beef on dairy" genetics – an increasingly common practice where dairy cows are bred with specialized beef bulls to produce calves with better beef characteristics. For eight years, Joel has refined this approach using TD Beef (Angus) genetics, creating animals that satisfy both dairy efficiency and beef quality demands. These crossbred calves represent a solution to one of dairy's longstanding challenges: finding valuable markets for male calves born to dairy cows.
Technology plays a starring role in Joel's operation. Each cow wears an ear tag that monitors body temperature, rumination (digestive activity), and behavior patterns – allowing for precise, individualized care. This technological edge helps overcome the nationwide shortage of large animal veterinarians while maintaining exceptional animal welfare standards.
Joel dispels common misconceptions about dairy production, explaining the rigorous testing that ensures milk contains no antibiotics or inappropriate hormones. Every load undergoes testing before leaving the farm, maintaining the highest food safety standards. Similarly, the milking facilities maintain cleanliness levels that surprise most visitors – often "cleaner than most people's houses."
Despite challenges like finding qualified workers and managing weather extremes, Joel remains passionate about agriculture. His "fail forward" philosophy embraces innovation and learning from mistakes. With eleven new countries seeking American milk and growing opportunities for beef-dairy crossbreeds, the future looks promising for producers willing to adapt.
Whether you're curious about where your food comes from or considering a career in agriculture, this episode offers valuable insights into an industry that continues to evolve while maintaining its family-centered roots. Subscribe now to hear more stories from the people who produce the food on your table!
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Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Burger, our podcast produced by the New Mexico Beef Council. I'm Caroline Romo and I'm here with Joel Van Dam. Joel, will you introduce yourself and maybe your background and then kind of what you do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Joel Van Dam, a third-generation dairy farmer originally from California but relocated to New Mexico in 2002. Dad, brothers, whole family milk cows.
Speaker 1:And you have Route 77 dairy. Is that you yeah?
Speaker 2:Okay, my mom are up 77. We're milking about 4,200 cows there. We keep all our young stock calves, beef on dairy calves, pretty well everything stays at the farm.
Speaker 1:Okay, where does that name come from?
Speaker 2:So the highway is 77. It is okay, it's located on 77. Okay, perfect, All right, I figured that much. We were kind of out of names so we figured that was easy enough.
Speaker 1:That's a great name. And then now you guys, you bought a ranch too, right?
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So you guys are. You bought a ranch too, right, Correct. So you guys are. Are dairymen turned ranchers?
Speaker 2:In a roundabout way. I do not own a cowboy hat yet, and I'd probably I'd probably be punished if I did buy one.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's great and I think, um, uh, obviously, as a dairy producer, your operation plays a large role in the beef industry in so many ways. Um, but specifically you talked about beef on dairy calves and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:will you kind of tell us a little bit more about that, how that's evolved in your operation, and it's been a game, uh, for quite a while just trying to figure out the right genetics that we need in these animals to to mimic like the perfect angus cow, or your your proper beef cow, if you would. So we've gone lymph flash, we've gone limo, we've done a lot of different things. Uh, right now we're we're all td beef, which is angus okay, and guys are really, really thrilled with them yeah, yeah and um and what that means, right for listeners.
Speaker 1:we explained it in some of the podcasts, but in case you haven't listened to another one so dairy calves, so a dairy cow has to have a calf to start producing milk, and that calf was often. If it's a heifer, you keep them or, you know, have a plan for it might go back into the milk supply or milk production. But if it was a steer steer or a bowl, it maybe didn't have much of a destination or had some destinations but less right or fewer it had fewer, fewer opportunities to be able to market them.
Speaker 2:Look, the marketability of a Holstein steer was rapidly going away, um, so our thought on doing the beef on dairy was our facilities are full, we have our effort numbers. What is something else we can do to financially benefit from something? And um definitely turned into something that is working out really well, not only for us but for beef guys themselves with. With the amount of cattle that are not available if you're going to go to your sale barn, it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's been. Maybe. I think it was really new, maybe 10 years ago or maybe less, but now it's normal. Almost all dairies are doing it right.
Speaker 2:It's pretty well a standard practice. I don't want to say we were some of the first, but we definitely have been working on it for about eight years or so now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we kind of really got it dialed into what we want, what the buyer wants, and consistency being king yeah, and are you guys, now that you have, uh, now that you're also on the ranching side, are you guys gonna raise some of those calves too on your ranch?
Speaker 2:or, yeah, that is the plan. Um, we run. I think there's 280 head up there. Uh, we got 250 calves that just dropped, so we have room for another 200, 300. So we're gonna definitely try some of their out. Yeah, out there and see how, just see how they do. Um, you know, they've been proven in a feed yard, they've been proven out the dairy, but I I haven't seen anything with them coming off of actual, you know, pasture ranch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, good luck with that.
Speaker 2:It'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and what a neat opportunity to be able to test it out and see how it evolves right and how it has evolved.
Speaker 2:That's one of the things I like being able to try something different. If it works, cool. If not, let's try something else. Figure out how to make it work.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and that's that's. Um, I think a good way to be as a human and probably a really good way to be as a producer, is you got to fail forward you gotta try things and be okay with failure and start again.
Speaker 2:Fail forward. That is a very good term yeah, I say it a lot.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that tells says something about the way I work, but I'm always trying to fail forward. We're gonna. We're gonna make mistakes, yeah, and just be just learn.
Speaker 2:It's a learning process. It's a groaning process. I mean we're especially on the ranch side. I mean we've never done it before, but we have a lot of friends that know how to do it and I've been told I'm doing stuff wrong before, and this is one of them.
Speaker 1:There you go, not afraid to hear that, and change and adapt and learn. Yeah Well, what do you think is the most rewarding part of being an ag producer?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them. How you would define exactly one is kind of, you know, being able to wake up and go, go check your cattle, whether it's at the ranch or it's at the dairy or to feed yard. Just being able to go, you know what these are going to feed the world. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's pretty neat and obviously we appreciate what you're doing to feed the world, because you know when I go to the grocery store. It wouldn't happen, there wouldn't be an abundant and safe food supply in America without people like you.
Speaker 2:And it's still running short. Yeah gosh, it's still running short.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what do you think? Can you talk about the care for the livestock? What? What do you do to make sure and care for the health and wellbeing of your livestock?
Speaker 2:Being there daily. I mean, clearly I'm not right now because we're at Redoso, but uh, having good staff, good good management practices. Uh, technology is helping out a lot. We're using the new cow manager tag from Select Sires. It gives us body temperatures, rumination, activities. It's lifetime.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so each animal has an ear tag that tells you everything about them.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you say rumination, that's their digestive system. How?
Speaker 2:much food they eat, how much water they they drink, how much time they're spending laying down how much time they're up walking around. If I see them getting long, you know, are my guys taking them in the milk barn too early? Are they sitting over there instead of you know on my time? It's just another tool that helps me be able to manage my guys to be more efficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and to take care of the animal. I mean, gosh, I don't know the last time I took my own temperature.
Speaker 2:Probably been a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and nobody's paying attention to my nutrition, much to Kate's dismay.
Speaker 2:our dietician- I can pull it up lifetime on my phone and it shows me all the alerts of cows that you know might be off of food. Are they coming into heat? Do we need to get them bred? Did one slip and fall? Is she down somewhere? Do I have a lame cow somewhere? It's just a really neat tool. It's been in the works for a while and it's definitely probably the coolest tool I have right now.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, and I think it's just a cool thing for a consumer to know that you're going and buying milk off or we are going and buying milk off the shelf and to get that milk there, a dairy farmer knew everything about the animal that produced it and cared to the utmost level of care.
Speaker 2:We don't have a steady supply of vets around. We don't have a vet on farm every single day. We have them once a week because we don't have enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is a tool that helps us go hey, go check out this cow, go check out that cow, and it's pretty neat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that is really neat we do. That could be a plug to our listeners. We do need more large animal veterinarians. Oh absolutely, in New Mexico and across the nation.
Speaker 2:The nationwide. So it was really cool. We had that dairy consortium group out and I don't know if you've talked about that on the podcast yet or not, but about half the kids that were there. When I say kids are 18 to 21.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:About half of them were interested in being large animal vets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is really neat. Oh, we need them so much it's there's a shortage and yeah. So we haven't talked about the Dairy Consortium, but it's the US Dairy and Education Consortium, I think, is maybe the full name, if you.
Speaker 2:Google it. If you look it up.
Speaker 1:I think it's like usda etc. But they are. They are a college course in the summer, a six-week program. Students from all over the nation come to clovis, new mexico, um six. They stay in clovis for six weeks. They put them up in a hotel. The cost is like a hundred dollars to the student yeah except maybe your tuition, if it counts for your credit somehow. I'm not sure how that all works out through dairy producing new mexico.
Speaker 2:We help subsidize some of that cost also yeah, yeah, and it's so.
Speaker 1:It's almost free to the students and it's this incredible program and they're on a dairy farm, like every day six days a week at least yeah, yeah, and so getting that hands-on experience. So if you're a young person and you have to apply and I don't think everyone gets in- no it's the cream of the crop. We went, I went and spoke to the group recently and I had a line of people asking me questions.
Speaker 2:They had to run me out of the room cause they had to get back to the curriculum because this group was so great they were so inquisitive about and a lot of them are have a production history already, whether, and then a handful that already had dairy experience Yep, but just them being able to get out and really see how different operations run and get to meet somebody like me.
Speaker 1:You, don't meet a farmer.
Speaker 2:You're not meeting grandpa that's, you know, 70 years old, because he doesn't have anybody to take care of his farm for you. You get the old, 37-year-old Joel and they're like wait, you do this for a living. Yeah, I've been doing it since I was 18.
Speaker 1:you do this for a living. Yeah, I've been doing it since I was 18, oh, and what a cool inspiration for young people too that if they want to go into the industry they can. Oh right, you can be a beginning farmer, um, and yeah, the dairy consortium is a great place to start. I know that's a great program that a lot of agriculture groups support. We support as a new mexico beef council. Um, all of that so well, speaking kind of of those kind of you know mentioning those ag groups, and then you mentioned we're in Rio Doso, so we're at the Dairy Producers of New Mexico annual meeting. There was a board meeting yesterday, producer meeting today. Can you talk about your role with the Dairy Producer Organization? And then I guess that kind of maybe leads into you're also a board member for New Mexico Beef Council.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I a both sides. So yeah, um, really, the dairy producer side is really more litigation, politics, um stuff that beef council cannot do. Right, we were allowed to get out there and lobby and really work uh, work both sides of the aisle for not only beef guys but the dairy guys, and uh, like, one of the cool things we got in the docket right now is the uh, the healthy milk for kids. So getting like whole milk back in schools instead of one percent or zero fat milk.
Speaker 1:So that's gonna be pretty cool oh yeah, and that's an important, important work that dairy producers do, and then, and then you're a volunteer for their board and you're a volunteer for the new Mexico beef council board. So you're, you're, uh uh, keep getting voluntold or something voluntold is a very good way to put it but I'm happy to help.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and we're glad, glad to have you the the amount of people that are willing to one sacrifice their time away from their kids or families or everything else, or guys just go I don't want to do it, yeah, just have no interest, it's hard to get volunteers in any in any situation and then and then to put yourself out there and in these situations is it's good.
Speaker 1:So we we thank you for, for your service to the industry on both sides, because we we need, we need volunteers like you, and I'm very grateful for all of our board members.
Speaker 2:Being able to come up here and spend a week in the mountains doesn't hurt either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not so bad, it's still better than Albuquerque. Yeah, we make him come to Albuquerque for our board meetings often. Well, okay, so kind of back to the cattle. What's one thing maybe people don't know about raising cattle, whether dairy or beef. I know we kind of already talked about some things that maybe people wouldn't know, but anything else that you think is surprising, maybe something surprising that the consortium kids thought of.
Speaker 2:You know, not off the top of my head. Really, I think the fallacy that people think that every animal has hormones in it, or every gallon of milk has antibiotics in it or it's you know something bad. And there's unbelievable the amount of people that still, like producers, won't go buy milk from a grocery store because they think there's something wrong with it yeah, I think that's an important thing to address, and what I would say about that, from my understanding, is every all milk is tested.
Speaker 1:All milk is to a very high degree of regulation, even it's the highest regulated market. Yes, and they're testing to make sure there's not hormones in the milk. They're testing to make sure there's not antibiotics in the milk correct.
Speaker 2:So every load, every load, before they even put it in the truck, gets a test.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if it's, and if it fails the test, it's gone. That milk will not go into the food system.
Speaker 2:It goes in the lagoon and it gets sprayed on a field.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, so the the water is reused in a system, or, you know, the liquid is reused as kind of a water or a fertilizer, so that we're still being resourceful and sustainable, but that milk will not go into the food system.
Speaker 2:No, after 15 years I've had one tank ever. Oh, that's been it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's good.
Speaker 2:And it went down the drain. I had to pay for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's bad news, but one in 15 years is good news. But yeah, and I think that's important for people to know that it's very tested, it's very regulated, our food system is safe. We want you to feel very comfortable buying milk at the grocery store the cheapest milk, whatever milk you feel you want to buy that you can feel confident that it's safe because it has been tested, it has been careful. And then, even if we talk about antibiotics too, I always think it's an important conversation to talk about withdrawal dates and conversations with that. Every medicine that's approved for livestock or cattle or food animals has withdrawal dates right, and so you can give an animal this and you cannot use that animal for food production, whether beef or dairy, until that medicine is out of their system.
Speaker 2:So even our hospital cows, the mastitis cows. They're in a separate pen, they get milked at a separate time, they go in a separate tank and that gets handled all by itself and everything's sanitized every time we process those cows to the barn to make sure that everything's nice and clean.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. I think that's. Another great thing too about dairies is the sanitization. Sanitization yeah, that word sounded weird.
Speaker 2:Is that a word? That is a word. I guess it is now.
Speaker 1:Maybe, oh, I don't know if it is a word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyways, sanitizing. You got this. Come and see kind of what. When you were out last time and the look on your face and who else was with you Kate Schultz, our dietitian. She's like this is what the inside of a milk barn looks like. It's cleaner than most people's houses. Yes, it's, and we have to be that way?
Speaker 1:yeah, right, because there are regulations in there and and you care about the product that you're putting in people's homes. Absolutely, yeah, well, I think that's that's a great answer to that question. Um, what? How would you describe new mexico's landscapes and then maybe even land and resource management? Playing into your um, playing into what you do?
Speaker 2:well, like everybody said, six inches of top dirt and a little bit of rain makes it go a long ways. We would not survive without it.
Speaker 1:Um, and we need rain, yeah.
Speaker 2:You have to yeah, need rain.
Speaker 1:And then even where your dairy is is in a unique spot where there's a lot of dairies, because it's good climate for cattle.
Speaker 2:It's the I won't say the best. I mean California is still better. Wisconsin claims that they think they're still better, but New Mexico still sits number one Cow numbers per herd, right, the largest, largest dairy, largest dairy numbers yeah, um, kind of all across. I mean the guys that aren't weren't good at it. They're all gone. Now you're left with my generation and we're the bullheads of it all and I think it.
Speaker 1:It's great that New Mexico has the climate and the ability to have those herds and care for those herds in a good way, because we have this unique climate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's dry, it's arid. I mean we've had a great spring with really good rain as you can tell you, look at. Clovis versus Roswell. It's a night and day difference and thank the good Lord that we got that Yep. So that's nice.
Speaker 1:We were saying in the last podcast, we wish we could share the rain because it's pretty uneven throughout the state right now. Yes, Quite uneven, but it's such an important thing and that's where resource management I mean. You guys are waiting on rain in a lot of ways for the feed, and then too much rain makes the pens rough and all of that it's part of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, too much rain is better than too much rain is the goal, yep.
Speaker 1:What would you say is the biggest challenge you face in your operation?
Speaker 2:Probably being able to get the right guys in the right positions to do the right job. So staffing, Staffing is really not an issue. I mean you could hire 100 people in a week.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But are they qualified?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Do they know anything? Yeah, did they just leave Albertsons to come work for? Oh, you know what these guys are paying more over here. But getting the good experience, guys, and the guys that really want to work and care for the cows properly, is that 24-7 operation constantly training and and working to make sure, we have great outsourcing this with.
Speaker 2:You know the zoetis and other companies that provide drugs. And they don't only provide that, they provide hands-on training. Okay, every, every quarter, we go through milker training, outside guys training, hospital training, calf training, just, and they get a little certificate and I keep them on file just in case we ever get out say is this guy qualified for that job? Yep, we got it right here yeah, oh, that's.
Speaker 1:That's it interesting challenge? Um, you know you, you think about the. You know you, you think about the. You know waking up to cows, and then you've also got to wake up to people management. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Somebody called and said do you have a human resources person working for you? I was like you're talking to him. Yeah, I got to deal with everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, cause it's family business.
Speaker 2:You don't? You don't go to bed and wake up and somebody to take care of it for you Right, it's you.
Speaker 1:Yep, what do you think?
Speaker 2:is your favorite part of the industry? Ooh, I like the baby calves.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love my babies and even with the Beef on Dairy cross calves, seeing those and really being able to look at you know different health traits in between the two, because those angus calves are just so stout and sturdy doctrine rate on them probably one and a half, two percent less than what it is on our holsteins okay yeah, we have just as good as genetics in our holsteins yeah but it's just something about that beef on dairy that's a good they're, they're healthy oh, that's great, I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's a very easy way to see kind of fruits of your labor when a calf is born, right? No, absolutely it's a very physical uh.
Speaker 2:You see that, and all that work and hope, especially whenever you get, you know, your first calf, heifers, coming in. You know you've. You've been sitting on them for two years yes oh, that was two years ago yes, especially, especially when you get into it.
Speaker 2:I got some specialty breeds, you know, some show calves and stuff for the kids. Oh, neat being able to watch those come fresh and then take that calf and then watch it, and then you know the kids wind up showing it or if it works, yeah, that's neat, just something different, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. So when you you know we not to talk too much negative, but you have bad days or you have hard things, whether it be, you know, not enough rain, whether it be people management, all of that, what makes you keep going? Why do you continue to do what you do and even continue to raise dairy cattle, raise beef and be a volunteer in the industry? Like what makes you keep going?
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just I don't know, it's been just built into us. I mean, my granddad started back in early 50s and it just kept on going, and we're fortunate enough that we were able to keep on going. Oh yeah, I think a lot of times we say it's just kind of born in you yeah, well, and you get some of those guys that you know they were born into him and their dad made them work too much, or you know. Then they just lost all interest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you get pressured into that position, luckily you have a lot of people run away from it yeah, yeah, that is a big, big problem of getting people to stay at the farm, right?
Speaker 2:Well, just agriculture in general. I don't care if you're a row cop farmer, a cotton farmer, a beef guy, a pig guy, a sheep guy, a goat guy. Yep, If you're overpressured, you just kind of step out and go yeah, I'm going to go to college instead.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:And never come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a big deal and that's one of the things that a lot of the universities and youth organizations talk about training for careers. But that career could be owning your own farm or coming back to the family farm or family ranch or family operation.
Speaker 2:I mean you look at the dynamics of a farmer anymore. It's absurd. The age gap. Oh yeah, I don't know if you know what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, I know that New Mexico has the oldest average age of farmers or all agricultural producers we have. Of all the nation, we have the highest ages.
Speaker 2:And I think if you were to look at the dairy producer side, you probably have the youngest group in New.
Speaker 1:Mexico now, yeah Well, yeah, looking at your leadership and all of that, that makes a lot of sense. I think there has to be a change at some point and hope that there's a next generation to take over Exactly. Just hope for that. Is there anything else you'd like to add about your operation? Or the beef industry, or dairy industries?
Speaker 2:Keep drinking your milk and keep eating your beef. That's about all we could ask for. I mean, there's a lot of cool options, like even our meeting this morning. We have 11 new countries that are wanting US milk.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Indonesia being one of them. Okay, the number one dairy-consuming country in the world wants our milk, right? They don't want New Zealand's. The world, well, it's our milk. Right, they don't want New Zealand's, they don't want Europe's, they want American milk. Okay, so we have to. I think there's 11 different countries that we're looking for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well that's, that's good news for a destination for the milk Cause. We're really good at producing it. We're too good at it, right.
Speaker 2:Right it, we're too good at it, right, right. I think that was said that last night. Yes, yes, what's your, what's your guys' biggest downfall is like you know what we can? We can make milk when we want to.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Well, we can't add more animals, but we can definitely use technology to help us make more milk more efficiently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Uh. The more we learn about cow care and and all of it and genetics and everything, Well I think that's perfect. So now, kind of my favorite question and the last question to wrap it up what's your favorite way to eat beef, or maybe a favorite recipe?
Speaker 2:Ooh, I'm a filet guy. Okay, love a good filet.
Speaker 1:There you go, and what temperature, oh 125. Oh, there you go. Oh, specific right, I was thinking like medium, medium, rare, what you say? No, just 125.
Speaker 2:All right, On the smoker hot as you can get it. Finish it off in a cast iron with a little butter. You got the best of both worlds right there.
Speaker 1:Delicious, delicious, Beef and dairy or dairy on beef on that one. Yeah, there you go there you go Perfect, perfect Well.
Speaker 1:Thank you for what you do for these organizations, thank you for what you do to put healthy milk on the shelf and beef on our plates, and thanks for joining the podcast. Absolutely Behind the Burger is a podcast produced by the New Mexico Beef Council with the goal of telling the stories of the cattlemen and cattlewomen of the New Mexico beef industry. Thank you for joining us for today's episode. If you'd like more information, please visit nmbeefcom. Whether it be a burger, a steak or another beef dish, we hope you're enjoying beef at your next meal.
