Growing forage is of key importance to have feed of good quality at competitive price for dairy cows. In Mexico, droughts are becoming a serious issue as occurrence is increasing and no formal solution to avoid their impacts is given. As a consequence dairy farmers supplying Nestlé started to apply heavily fertilizers to increase land productivity and ensure supply of forage for dairy cows.
After few years with expensive chemical bills, farmers asked Nestlé to help them optimize use of water at farm level to decrease fertilizer's needs. A project started in 10 different farms, with an aim to increase the area of irrigation of agricultural lands and decrease the use of chemical fertilizers.
The main project operation consisted in extending and dividing a dam in two different parts:
- one to collect manure and organic solids, and
- the second one to store rainwater for irrigation use on agriculture lands for forages production.
The dam was inaugurated on time however it was very challenging to maintain the capacity of pluvial storage at 4 million cubic meters. Difficulties were met in applying insulating materials to the dam with no contamination of stored water.
The first pilot was launched in Guillermo Cuevas's farm, a fresh milk supplier for Nestlé Lagos Factory. This pilot has already delivered good results which has convinced other farmers to embark into similar project. For instance:
- At the start of the project, 15 hectares were cultivated without use of irrigation. At the end of th project, 10 hectares were cultivated with drip irrigation.
- At the end of the project, there was no need anymore for fertilisation, while the farm used to apply 7.5 Tones of Fertilizers pr year in the past.
- All together the irrigation cost incrased by $ 9'000, but the fertilization cost diminished from $18'000 to zero.
- In the same time, daily milk production increased from 1'200 Litres to 2'600 Litres.
In effect, good water supplementation through the use of a drip irrigation system increased by 60% the volume of forage made out of an hectare. The immediate result was more feed for the cows and more remaining money for the farmer to invest in new dairy cows. The system was paid back in one year and allowed optimization of forage growing, better supply of feed to cows and finally higher milk production for farmers and for Nestlé.