SDG 12: Responsible consumption and production

In conversation with… Erik van Dronkelaar, veal farmer

Just look around, all sorts of things are growing and blooming here. It is beautiful here.

In 2003, Erik van Dronkelaar and his wife Saskia took over his parents' mixed farm with calves, laying hens and fattening pigs. After a tough start – the farm was hit by bird flu – Erik and Saskia decided to stop keeping chickens and pigs after two years and keep only calves. There are now four stalls on the farm. A flock of merino sheep also roams the farmyard and the couple grows walnuts and elephant grass, among other things. We engage in conversation about responsible production.

Are you consciously engaged in responsible production?

“I certainly am. I believe in open and honest business operations. As a veal farmer, you have little direct contact with the consumer, but I try to achieve that. That is why I have set up a roadside farm vending machine with a neighbour. It contains the neighbours' eggs and our frozen veal. It’s a great way to come into contact with the general public. Veal is hardly sold here in the Netherlands, even though it is such a beautiful product. We should have much greater pride in our own Dutch products and by that, I don't just mean veal. The supermarket shelves are full of products sourced from abroad. But what's wrong with Dutch apples and pears? I sometimes miss that appreciation.”

Veal is hardly sold here in the Netherlands, even though it is such a beautiful product.

At the time of the interview, the farm is extremely quiet and no calf in sight. Why is that?

Erik: “We work according to the principle of ‘all in, all out’. This means all the calves we have are the same age. We get them when they are two weeks old and they subsequently stay here for 27 weeks. Then the entire herd leaves in one go for the VanDrie Group's meat production plants. That happened just a short time ago, so the stalls are now completely empty. It actually gives me the opportunity to clean everything properly. During this time, I also always get the pest controller to come, because no matter how well you keep everything clean, there will always be mice. It is important not only to keep those rodents out because of the risk of barn fires, but also to prevent the transmission of diseases.”

How do you make sure the calves you deliver are healthy and of optimal quality?

“Hygienic and protocol-based work practices are very important. We pay close attention to that. This allows us to detect and tackle diseases at the earliest possible stage. If you only intervene even half a day later, the animal is already a lot sicker and the likelihood of the infection spreading is considerably higher. You want to avoid that.”

What method do you use to feed the calves?

“I work in a very structured way. The calves are given calf milk twice a day, always at the same time. In the morning, I switch on the dispenser at 05.30 and again at 15.30 in the afternoon. I check that the milk mixture is right and that the temperature is correct. If all that is in order, you are pretty much home and dry. I also keep track of how long the animals drink because you have to watch out for overfeeding. A calf will drink everything you put in front of it; only later will it suffer. For roughage, I have an automatic filling system. That works great and it takes a lot of work off my hands. It also produces hardly any mess, and the shed remains mess-free. We feed water into the trough through the milk pipes. That means that the nipples and so on don't then need to be cleaned. For me, that's the ideal solution.”

How do you approach the use of medication?

“In calf husbandry, there's a lot of discussion regarding the use of medication. We are constantly being urged to reduce the quantity of medication we administer. We are certainly trying to do that and we have already reduced it considerably. Everything depends on what you start out with. In our case, the starting point is the calves supplied to us from the dairy farm. If the animals are given the right start there, it helps us as veal farmers to reduce the use of medication even further.”

For roughage, I have an automatic filling system. That works great and it takes a lot of work off my hands.

What role does livestock shed ventilation play in calf health?

“Proper ventilation is essential for animal health. We have several ventilation systems in our stalls, but we still don't really know what works best. Our newest shed was built in 2018 and we consciously put a lot of thought into how it is ventilated. But remarkably, in the last round, the calves that were housed in the old 1970s shed actually did best. We receive over eighteen hundred calves per round, which in turn come from over a thousand different farmers. We always get to see the slaughter results, including the colour and the fat content, and it’s still a surprise every time when we see which calves from which shed have done best.”

A few years ago, you and two fellow farmers founded Veal Solutions. What is that?

“Veal Solutions actually originated as a kind of joke. I had joined two other veal farmers – William Roemburg from Zwartebroek and Marco van Hamersveld from Nijkerk – on an excursion to a leather tannery. At the tannery, they had discovered a problem: after tanning, they found holes in the calf skins and had no idea what caused them. The only thing we could think was that the holes must be caused by biting stable flies. But that was actually far too simple, wasn't it? We investigated this in our own stalls and it did in fact turn out to be due to those flies. The tanners were very happy with this answer and from then on we were used more often to provide practical solutions. We were jokingly called Team Veal Solutions.”

What else have you done as Team Veal Solutions?

“Among other things, we have been working on adding bacterial cultures to manure to reduce methane and ammonia emissions. An interesting topic, but in the meantime, the collaboration between the three of us has come to an end. On your own, it is unfortunately not possible to achieve solutions with regard to manure.”

Another topic: energy. How are electricity and heating regulated at your place?

“We are entirely self-sufficient and no longer use any gas whatsoever. Ten years ago, we bought our first solar panels and on the new barn we built in 2018, we also installed panels immediately. We have also had a biomass boiler for 15 years. With this, we heat everything, both the hot water needed for the milk and for our own home. For fuel, we partly use wood chips that I try to obtain nearby and partly elephant grass.”

Elephant grass? Please would you explain that?

“In this region, the main crops that are grown are grass and maize. We also used to grow maize. First, we grew it as feed for our own calves and later on as commercial maize. However, the ground here is very low-lying, so it’s always wet. As a result, the land was almost impassable. I had had enough of that, so we started looking for other options. We ended up with elephant grass, a reed-like crop. We planted 3.25 hectares of it. It took three years for it to become a mature crop, but now we hardly have to do anything with it. We cut it at the end of April and then we store it and use it as fuel. But elephant grass has other benefits. It absorbs much more CO₂ than grass, maize or forest, for example. Another nice aspect is that it attracts wildlife. Since we’ve cultivated elephant grass, I see a lot more deer and pheasants walking around. That's very nice to see.”

Elephant grass has other benefits. It absorbs much more CO₂ than grass, maize or forest, for example.

Growing elephant grass is not the only thing besides calf husbandry.

“That’s right. For example, we also have a flock of merino sheep roaming here. These provide beautiful, long wool from which clothes are made here in the Netherlands. We also have a large number of walnut trees, several fruit trees, a series of pollard willows and a plot of winter food plot for the birds. Around our land we have flower borders, totalling one hectare. You sometimes hear people say that farmland is so barren and monotonous. That's really not the case here. Take a look around you. All sorts of things are growing and flourishing here. It's an absolutely beautiful sight.”