Jan Willem Elsenga, dairy farmer in Lelystad:

125 Jersey cows: 1 million kg milk/year

"The soil in this region is of great quality, you can really achieve good yields from arable farming. But it’s important to work on maintaining good soil health. Are the harvests you reap from the land balanced with what you've fed into that land?

That’s why dairy cattle farming is so harmonious with arable farming. The by-products of arable farming that aren’t suitable for human consumption make good input for dairy farming. These include the by-products of grains, potatoes and sugar beet, for example.

They can be fed to cows, in either a processed or unprocessed form. Dairy cows at the Farm of the Future turn these by-products and grass into valuable new outputs such as milk, meat and fertiliser. The fertiliser, in turn, becomes a valuable input for the arable farming business. Because both of our businesses focus on doing a particular thing really well, their processes are fully optimised and they achieve good results."