Farming in Poland: three case studies

Jerzy Kokocinski

This farm has 34ha owned and a further 50ha rented, which are adjoining. Rents in Poland are effectively a lease with a typical minimum period of five years, but more often 10.

Conacre is unheard of and the Polish fail to understand the Irish system of taking land for just a single growing season. Price of rented land is also fairly fixed around the market value of a ton of wheat.

While this farm also feeds its bull calves until they are finished around two years old, the primary focus is on milk. The farm is a member of the Polish Federation of Cattle Breeders and Dairy Farmers, a 20-year-old independent, voluntary and self-governing organisation with about 8,200 members.

It is a lobbying and advisory organisation for members, intended to drive production efficiency and approved by the Ministry of Agriculture for milk recording and herd bookkeeping.

The land use is primarily geared to feeding the livestock with the typical mix of barley, wheat, maize and sugar beet. Only 20% of the barley is used for the livestock; the reminder is sold off farm as a cash crop to a brewery.

Average milk output per cow is 12,595kg, with 4.1% fat and 3.3% protein, and the milk is sold to Müller, the German-based dairy company and is collected off farm every day. The 27 milking cows are kept indoors tied in the shed with straw bedding with small pens for calves in the passage. Cows are milked with a pipeline.

Male calves are fed and finished as bull beef. Interestingly, they too are tied in their pens.

Lukasza Danelski

Lukasza farms 60ha in total 40km northwest of Poznan in Poland, and about a two hour drive to Berlin in Germany.

He milks 32 predominantly Friesian-bred cows, tied in a cow shed either side of a passageway which is used for feeding.

Cows stand and lie on a straw-bedded solid floor which has a raised personnel passage between the back of their lying area and the boundary wall of the shed.

Cows remain in position for milking, with the pipeline running above the cows’ heads to the milk collection tank in a building next to the cow shed.

There is no grass grazed by cattle on the farm, although 10ha is cut for hay which is stored in a large shed, typical of what we might find in Ireland for this purpose.

Young stock are segregated, roughly depending on age, with young calves bucket fed until they are old enough to eat grain and hay produced on the farm. They are penned along with similar-sized calves. Bulls are kept until they are ready for the factory and are also tied in their pens.

The farm grows all its own feed for the livestock, with the 60ha farm (photo, below) broken down into:

The wheat crop has been harvested as has the hay with the winter wheat crop just planted last week.

Zofia, Henryk and Piotar Olejniczak

This farm is based on 40ha owned with a further 30ha rented. It is operated by husband and wife team Zofia and Henryk Olejniczak, who have built the farm up from 6ha over the past 15 years. It has 190 livestock units on the farm, 70 of which are milk cows and the remainder this year’s calves and those from previous years which are being either finished for bull beef, or, in the case of the heifers, being kept as replacement cows.

As this farm has grown over the past 15 years, most of the buildings and facilities have a modern feel and at 70 milking cows is typical of an Irish farm in its operation and facilities. Cows are kept loose in a large shed which has an eight-point milking parlour adjacent to it. Cows are milked twice daily, with the milk sent to Müller.

However, as is usual in Poland and very different from Ireland, all cattle on the farm are housed on straw beds with the feed mix of maize, barley, wheat, sugar beet and hay all grown around the farm and fed to the cattle.

The cows are milked typically 310 days each lactation, achieving 10,000 litres with 3.85% fat and 3.4% protein. Bacteria is 5,000 and somatic cell count is 150,000.

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Farming in Poland series