Photo courtesy of Jazzy Jerseys: https://jazzyjerseys.com/
Sydney Flick manages her family farm Jazzy Jerseys in Lodi. They milk about 800 cows. She says while 1 billion people will celebrate Earth Day on April 22 this year, it’s something she lives every day.
“We rely on the land to take care of our family and the cows,” she says.
Jazzy Jerseys has reduced water usage by recycling. They use naturally cold water from the well to cool down the milk from the cows. That same water is used to hydrate the cows and calves. That water eventually ends up in the manure which helps the farm spread the nutrients on the field more evenly.
In the field, Jazzy Jerseys utilizes buffer strips to prevent soil erosion and nutrient runoff. Buffer strips are narrow areas of grass that act as a physical barrier between fields, slowing the flow of water. Flick says the buffer strips don’t make it easier to farm – it can make things more tedious – but it does preserve the soil and keep the water clean.
Jazzy Jerseys works with the Lake Wisconsin Watershed Council to learn more about conservation practices and to get access to resources that help the farm pay for things like cover crop seed.
Flick says these same practices have helped the farm through some hardships, like the drought last year that hit Lodi especially hard. At the end of the season, they found that 2023’s crop performed better than the drought of 2012. She says it likely had to do with both better seed genetics and the work they did to make the soil healthier.
“We were able to harvest a crop that fed our cows,” she says.
