Right now Dana is working alongside her brother, Dean, and her father and mother, Gary and Linda Allen, in the daily operation of the family's Gar-Lin Dairy Farm.

With more than 700 head in the dairy herd and 1,800 acres planted to crops, there's plenty of work on the farm for everyone. Dana's education easily qualifies her to be the one to formulate dairy rations. But she also can be found driving a big tractor, scraping manure from barn alleys with a skid steer loader, or on the phone with members of the state's Livestock Advisory Task Force, of which she is an appointed member.

To Farm or Not to Farm

Dana's final decision hinges on answers to several questions: will the work continue to challenge her creativity in satisfying ways? Or will she begin to yearn for a more academic life? Can her working style mesh with the other partners, even though they are family?

The Allens decided that a two-year trial period, or an apprenticeship of sorts, could help answer these questions before Dana committed herself to the responsibilities of a partnership. The trial period has given everyone the opportunity to evaluate whether or not a four-way family partnership could be successful. Dana accepted the apprenticeship and returned to the family farm to work with managerial responsibilities. The work assigned to her imitates the role she would play as a full-blown partner, but she remains an employee until the trial period is over in December 2004.

"The trial period really lets all of us decide whether or not it would be a good fit for me to join the family partnership," said Dana. "It gives everybody an out. I'm a new person in the business, trying to meld into what my parents and brother have been working toward. It's been a challenge for all of us. A partnership is all about the farm business, and that has to survive. Yet, with all the struggles farm families go through, the family side of life has to work, too."

A Father's View

From her father's view, he hopes the dairy offers her the sort of life and work she will find fulfilling. But fulfilling work aside, he knows that workable business partnerships call for practicality as well. "First of all, everyone has to be able to get along," he said. "And Dana is very professional. She brings a lot to the table with her expertise in nutrition and politics. Yet she's not afraid to do everyday work such as driving a tractor in the field or running a skid steer loader. She does whatever it takes to make it easier for her to fit into the operation."

Over time, particularly as the parents start withdrawing from daily decision-making, her father sees a growing need for Dana's involvement.

Her brother, Dean, thinks a successful family business partnership must also offer each person room to grow. "An operation needs to be large enough so each individual in the partnership is challenged if he or she wants to be challenged," he pointed out. "Each person should have the opportunity to have his or her own identity. In partnerships where there are two or three people who are extremely driven, all need room to spread their wings."

Given the scope of the family business, Gar-Lin Dairy Farm would appear to offer each of its partners that room to grow. Dana helps her mother with the farm's bookkeeping, and her father cares for the field crops of alfalfa, corn, soybeans, sweet corn and field peas for canning. Dean manages the dairy herd and supervises the milking staff.

Working to Improve

As the senior partner, her father's goal is to increase the herd's average production from 27,000 pounds to 30,000 pounds. He also hopes to further improve the herd's fertility by shortening the calving interval. "We're above average in these areas, but we can always find ways to improve," he said. Dana formulates rations for the milking string, dry cows, replacement heifers, and young calves. She also oversees the work of feeding and developing calves, work she finds particularly challenging, yet rewarding. "You're dealing with a life when caring for calves," she said. "If a calf gets sick, I'm always wondering why the calf got sick, and I'm thinking about ways we could improve the system to avoid future illnesses."

Dana Allen, with her father Gary and brother Dean, who along with her mother Linda will be her partners in the family dairy business if Dana decides to remain.

She credits their hard-working, detail-oriented staff with the farm's zero death loss of heifer calves. "We don't do anything any more special than what's recommended," she said. "It's just that we indeed do what's recommended. We pay attention to the fundamentals of raising a healthy calf. For instance, we keep calf pens clean and dry, and scrub feeding pails with a good disinfectant."

Calves to Computers

Dana also helps with other aspects of the farm. This diversity of work is one reason she was drawn back to the family dairy. "I like to be outside," she said. "I love the animals and working with baby calves. Yet when it's raining, I like to work at the computer formulating rations or completing paperwork needed for the permitting of the lagoon."

"I came back to the farm because I hoped to have the opportunity to run my own business," she added. "When you're running your own business or are a partner in a family business, you're solely responsible for the outcome. You have the opportunity to make of that business whatever you choose."

When Dana Allen's apprenticeship for possibly becoming a partner in the family farm is completed, she, her parents, and her brother will together make a final decision on whether or not the opportunity she is searching for will be at Gar-Lin Dairy Farm.

 

Managing Manure in a Modern World Gar-Lin Dairy's present manure-handling system requires manure to be scraped daily into holding pits at the ends of the barns. From there it must be hauled to fields on a frequent basis. That means at least a few fields must be “open,” or free of crops throughout the year. Because manure management is emerging as such a critical issue for dairy farmers, Dana Allen spends some of her time working on the detailed permit process required for the dairy to change its manure-handling system. The Allens hope to install a lagoon to handle manure from the free-stall barn. The lagoon would be large enough to allow the pumping and hauling of manure only twice a year. "We will continue to haul manure every 10 to 14 days from the storage pits serving the young stock barns," said Dana. "But the amount of land that needs to be held open for manure hauling will be reduced." Because the farm is flat land, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) says its fields may have manure applied to them without danger of runoff. So the present crop rotation is designed to give year-round access to open fields where manure can be hauled. The farm is permitted to apply manure only in nutrient amounts that subsequent crops will be able to remove. Crops are carefully managed to make sure there are always open field available for the manure. Fourth year alfalfa is first-cut about May 20, making those fields available for late spring manure applications, before field peas are harvested. "Field peas are an integral part of that plan," Gary Allen said. "We plant them in April and harvest them early, in late June." These fields then provide open land for manure application until they're seeded to alfalfa in mid-August. "Alfalfa in its early stages of growth is a big user of nitrogen," he added, "so it uses up a lot of nutrients." Sweet corn is harvested in mid-August, and manure can then be applied to these fields. After that, field corn is harvested, opening up more land for manure. The Allens take special care to reduce the chance that neighbors will be bothered by the smell of manure. When the wind blows toward town they don't apply manure to fields upwind. If the air is heavy and humid on a manure spreading day, that field is disked within 12 to 24 hours to control the odor.