It is a good time to be a beef farmer in Norway. Benchmark target net margin/suckler cow is €1,500, of which €500 is a direct subsidy.

Most of the country’s beef cow herd calves in the spring, after harsh winters. Animals graze from mid-May to mid-October and calves wean at six to eight months. Cattle are typically slaughtered prior to a second winter, with males finished as bulls. Animals are fattened on cereal rations, with rolled barley currently trading at €320/t. Norway is 60% self-sufficient in cereals.

A U-grade bull carcase will attract a final price of €7.50/kg; €0.75 of this comes via a government subsidy. Norway is 80% self-sufficient in beef, with the gap filled with product from the EU, South America and Africa. There is a tariff of €3.44/kg on whole-carcase beef and €6.64/kg on hindquarter beef that comes into Norway.

After a very wet autumn 2017 that scuppered late silage harvests, there is a shortage of fodder in the country at present. Many farmers are turning to grains to fill the gap in diets.

An interesting fact – the closed period for slurry in Norway is 1 November to 1 April and farms must have dung/slurry storage capacity for 12 months.

Big picture

There are 80,000 beef cows and 220,000 dairy cows in Norway. Beef is the only livestock enterprise not limited by quotas in Norway: dairy farms are capped at 1m litres, poultry units at 7,500 laying hens, pig farms at 2,100 slaughter pigs and chicken farms at 280,000 birds. Former minister for agriculture Trygve Slagsvold Vedum of the Senterpartiet (party) is credited with leading the resurgence in beef farming. However, Norway is keen to preserve the family farm model and in the case of beef supports are offered solely on the first 50 cows and capped at €65,000 overall.

Subsidies are linked to production principally, though some are land-based, some designed to benefit the environment and others based on separate initiatives. To receive a direct cow payment, the animal must have calved in the previous 14 months and cannot be a dairy cow. There are subsidies available for other measures such as biogas production, protecting heritage sites, organic farming and measures that reduce conflict with Lapland natives. Norway’s energy production is 100% renewable, with the water flow from lakes located hundreds of metres above fjords being a huge power driver.

The beef ring

Erlend Røhnebæk keeps 60 suckler cows on a fragmented 250ha farm on the outskirts of Kongsvinger. He farms alongside his wife Guri and their children Peder, Anders and Jørgen.

The cattle account for around 80 of these hectares, with 170 planted in cereals. This is a crucial part of Erlend’s grain business – Giolstad Gard. He buys in cereals for rolling and treating with the Maxammon product, an additive produced in Scotland by the Harbro company. The process improves the grain’s protein concentration by around 30%, acts as a preservative and improves rumen stability.

Erlend sold 3000t of treated grains in 2017 to over 50 customers.

“Last autumn was difficult for silage making here. We got a lot of extra rainfall. Now there is a forage shortage and I’m seeing bigger demand for the Maxammon grain as farmers look to replace it. This year I have customers over 600km away. I recently started wrapping the grains into big square bales. They are easier to transport like this and it also means that farmers can store them outdoors.

Erlend works with 10 other farms in an arrangement he calls the “beef ring”.

“The beef ring is 11 years old this year. It was started by our local abattoir. Basically, 10 farms sell me their calves in October each year. Then I finish their 350 animals as well as my own for the abattoir. It gives me an economy of scale without having to carry huge cow numbers and means that the supplier farmers can focus on cows and calves, not worrying about fattening animals. I buy the calves from them at about 350kg, for €1,400 to €1,500. There is a legal agreement in place whereby the calves must be sired by continental bulls, adapted to concentrate feeds, have received one worm treatment and have their backs and thighs shaved. For biosecurity reasons, supplier farms cannot take in any live animals without letting us know.”

The beef ring group comes together a number of times each year for social gatherings and there are group technical days organised too. All weight and calving data from the beef ring supplier herds is collated and compared and Erlend says this creates an element of competition within the group.

“Last year, my heifers grew 1.14kg daily from birth to 200 days and my bulls 1.29kg. These are about the group average so I am happy. We have mostly continental genetics here but there are some Norwegian Red crosses in my cow herd to help with milk production,” he said.

Erlend’s herd calves in February and March. Calves then creep from straw beds into cubicles until mid-May, when stock can get to grass on an outfarm 15km away. He is one of the few farmers in the region who feeds straw to cows. Though to improve its feeding value and protein concentration, Erlend treats it with ammonia. This involves injecting gas into sealed bales and the process breaks down the indigestible lignin fraction of the feed’s fibre.

Grassland management has yet to kick off in the region, with animals grazing heavy covers in a set-stocked system. Perennial ryegrass will typically not survive the Norwegian winters, so swards contain grasses such as Timothy, Bluegrass and Meadow fescue. Though there are 80ha dedicated to grassland, 40 of these are used solely for winter silage production in a three-cut system and never grazed. This is the norm on beef farms in the region.

Erlend introduces a creep feeder to calves after around five months and builds calves to 2kg at weaning time 50 days later. Calves are abruptly weaned at the end of August and brought back to the yard for finishing. Cows stay out until mid-November. It will take calves less than three weeks to build up to their final finishing diet – ad-lib Maxammon cereals.

Bulls will remain on this diet until July, when the target is a carcase of 400-450kg. Heifer diets are diluted with straw until after Christmas to encourage skeletal growth and prevent excessive early fat deposition.

Calves from the beef ring supplier farms arrive in Erlend’s yard in October. Payments are based on weights taken in his own yard on arrival. The furthest supplier farm is around 100km away.

Supplier

Jan Ove Moen and his wife Anne Grete run one of the beef ring’s calf supplying-farms. They keep 52 predominantly Simmental breed suckler cows. Their farm comprises 40ha, of which 10 are owned. Thirty hectares of these are used solely for winter forage production.

The herd here calves in January and February, with 39 born in the first three weeks of the 2018 season. In 2017, the Moens achieved 0% mortality at and post-calving. Cows calve in a large loose straw pen and are moved into bonding pens for a couple of days after calving. After this, cows and calves run together with dry cows, though calves have the facility to creep into a dedicated area with access to concentrate supplements. The straw pen is bedded daily and there is a bottom layer of approximately 0.5m of sawdust taken in from a local mill. A round bale of barley straw costs around €5 currently, though there is every chance this will rise in the coming weeks as the fodder supply tightens.

Erlend Røhnebæk surveys his heifers and dry cows.

Erlend Røhnebæk surveys his heifers and dry cows.

Impressive

I asked the pair about how they achieve such impressive survival rates.

“We are here!” Anne Grete exclaimed. She explained that the pair pay very close attention to the calvings and the animals themselves around calving time. They can watch via an office window that looks out across the large shed and on fixed cameras.

Interestingly, there are no interventions around or after calving. No iodine treatment of navels, no scour vaccine for cows or no pneumonia shot for young calves, even though they’re indoors for up to four months. If the temperature drops to -10°C, newborn calves will receive colostrum at birth and be given a jacket. Less than 10% of the Moen’s calvings were assisted in 2017 and average birth weight was 42kg.

Ten animals in the herd are bred using AI each year, after which one owned stock bull and one rented bull work the herd. As expected given live and beef prices, bulls are expensive here. The Moen’s Simmental was bought from a testing station for €9,000. Pregnant cows in Norway fetch around €2,800 typically.

Calving interval on the farm is 362 days with first calving age currently running at 23.9 months. Two-year-old calving is regarded as the norm in Norway, though some farms with split herds will let heifers calve down slightly older.

The Moen’s heifer calves achieved 1.11kg of daily weight gain to 200 days of age, while bulls achieved an impressive 1.36kg daily.

High health standards

One thing that struck me during my time in Norway was the high health standards, but lack of interventions. Only the most intensive dairy and finishing units have vaccination protocols in place, whereas here in Ireland they are pushed on farms, big and small. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the cold winter climate makes it harder for the diseases we are used to here to thrive in Norway. However, they still exist in places and the country currently has traffic light-based IBR and RSV eradication programmes. A philosophy of prevention is Norway’s main weapon against disease. Biosecurity is huge. Farm visitors are presented with PPE at every holding. Indeed, visitors to the country are asked to avoid farms in their own native lands in the days before travelling to Norway.