With its rolling meadows and bluffs, Galena, Illinois, has become a tourist destination for those looking for a rustic and scenic taste of Midwest living. For those looking for a taste of the farming life, a farm just outside Galena provides people with a unique opportunity to learn about the dairy industry and Midwest farming firsthand. That farm is Berning Acres.
Husband and wife Matt and Natalie Berning own and operate Berning Acres, a second-generation dairy farm with 500 milking cows on 800 acres of land in East Dubuque, Illinois. Matt’s parents, John and Ellen Berning, started the farm in 1973 with 120 acres and 30 cows, and John still works on the farm today.
Running 365 days a year, the farm is an end-to-end dairy operation, which sells its dairy for cheese production in Wisconsin through the Rolling Hills Dairy Producers Cooperative.
While Natalie married into farming, Matt had a passion for farming from an early age and studied dairy herd management and agribusiness science and technology at Southwest Technical College.
Natalie hosted two groups of out-of-town families on a farm tour on Sept. 24, the day AgNavigator visited the farm. Prior to offering tours, Berning Acres would host a farm camp, where children could learn about agriculture.
Available six days a week, the farm tour encompassed a walk around the main farm operations, starting where feed is stored and then touring where cows are born, raised, and finally milked. The tour concluded with ice cream made with dairy from the farm.
The farm makes most of its money through its farming operations, but agritourism provides supplemental income and has growth potential, Natalie Berning noted. On top of the tour, Berning Acres sells various cheeses and Berning Acres-branded shirts and caps.
Berning Acres is tapping into the local tourism and drawing attention to its farm tours through a billboard on US-20 West heading into Galena.
“Galena gets almost 2 million visitors a year. People are looking for experiences like this. This is an extremely authentic experience. We invite you onto our working farm [and] give you a lot of hands-on experiences,” Natalie Berning elaborated.
The economics of a dairy farm in northwest Illinois
Like many farms, Berning Acres is grappling with higher input costs, which are compressing margins, Matt Berning noted. Unlike neighboring corn and soybean farmers who are benefiting from higher commodity prices, the dairy market is experiencing lower prices and the higher corn prices are compressing Berning Acres’ margins.
“Everything is based off the corn price. So, I personally prefer it when the corn price is lower because the feed price is lower,” Matt Berning said. “If corn is more expensive, that also normally means that milk will follow down the line.”
In addition to purchasing feed, Berning Acres manages its input costs by growing corn to use as cattle feed, Matt Berning said. Also, the farm uses cover cropping and no-till practices to improve soil health, offsetting some of the practice expenses with grants, he added.
This year, weather has impacted Berning Acres operations in a number of ways, Matt Berning pointed out. For instance, wet weather in northwest Illinois has made it hard to harvest this year’s corn crop, while the farm’s electricity bills for cooling cows reached roughly $6,000 to $8,000 per month during the hot summer months, he added.
What’s needed to run a 21st century dairy? Technology
Throughout the farm, Berning Acres relies on technology, including milkers, automatic feeders for calves, collars to track cows’ health, and other equipment, to ensure operations run smoothly. Cows wear electric collars that track health metrics, which helps Matt and Natalie Berning make more informed decisions.
Despite the reliance on technology, Berning Acres has run into issues when it comes to integrating different data sets, which should get better with the use of AI, Matt noted
“One of the issues that we have sometimes from technology is they don’t interact together. This company sells this. This company sells that, but can you get them to talk? No,” he elaborated.
AgNavigator’s Voice of the Farmer series tells local farm stories to a global audience
Looking to hear from farmers directly? Then, make sure to stay tune to AgNavigator’s Voice of the Farmer series, which will feature farmer stories from across the globe.
This fall, AgNavigator will be sharing farmer stories from northwest Illinois and Eastern Iowa, with a key focus on the Driftless region of the Midwest. To read the first in the series, click here to learn more about how two farmers in Mount Carroll, Illinois, is providing its local community with a supply of fresh specalty crops.
If you are a farmer or know a farmer that would like to be interviewed for this series, contact AgNavigator Editor Ryan Daily at ryan.daily@wrbm.com.
