Building a sustainable future

DE SOTO, Wis. — In January, William Walleser of Wall-Stone Holsteins earned the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation’s 35 under 35 award as the top individual in the sustainable environment category. Wall-Stone Holsteins began in 1961 as a small tiestall barn dairy and has evolved into a 1,400-cow dairy with a 50-stall rotary parlor in Wisconsin’s Driftless region.

While expanding throughout its history, Walleser, along with his grandparents and parents, has always had a focus on sustainability, allowing them to continue to improve the farm year by year, setting up its future.

“Sustainability means making more using less in all that we do,” Walleser said. “Farming is a generationally driven business. Nine times out of 10, the goal is to move the farm to the next generation … or a trusted person that you partner with.”

The family farm has expanded to employ 25 people who work in conjunction with the Wallesers to add to and maintain the farm’s sustainability efforts.

“This award is shared with everyone here,” Walleser said. “If we could put everyone’s name on it, it would make a lot more sense than it just being mine. This is so much bigger than me.”

The teamwork between the owners and employees has been essential to their continued progress.

“We achieved this because we have everyone seeing the same vision,” Walleser said. “Not because people are only listening to what you say, but because they see the end goal we have as a team. It lets our employees add to it by making suggestions and being comfortable providing feedback.”

Helping employees find their voice is a challenge all managers must handle. The Wallesers have found it easier to give them that chance by working side-by-side with them.

“You need that feedback from your employees,” Walleser said. “You may think that you told them the right way to do it, but if you’re not the one directly doing that job every day, or if you can’t get your team to give you feedback, you aren’t all working towards the same goal.”

Sustainability has been ingrained at Wall-Stone Holsteins since its inception. More recently, the farm expanded to its new rotary parlor and built different facilities along the way.

With the expansion, variable speed motors were installed in all areas of the new milking facility, with all lighting being transitioned to LED.

“We don’t want to consume any more electricity than we have to,” Walleser said. “Some may think those are little things, but when you run as many lights as we do and have all those other machines, you notice the difference just in your power bill.”

To help ease the burden of the local community, Wall-Stone Holsteins worked with Dairyland Power and Vernon Electric Cooperative to be part of its Peak Power program. This allows the dairy to have its own generator. During peak times of the year, the dairy can be disconnected from the traditional energy provider. The generator creates enough power for the dairy for 4-hour sessions during peak times.

Taking care of the land and the surrounding community is also important to Walleser and his family.

“It’s our job as a farmer to be stewards of the land,” Walleser said. “The land, animals and people that are part of our team are all trusting us to do what’s best for everyone, because when we do that, we get the best results. Sustainability and profitability are so closely tied together. I’d like to see my family here for another 100 years, and that means I must do my part.”

Agronomically, Walleser and his family have been implementing sustainability practices since the farm was founded by his grandfather nearly 70 years ago.

“We’ve been practicing contour farming since 1961,” Walleser said. “Where we’ve evolved is doing a lot more no till, with a lot of low disturbance manure applications. Incorporating manure without disturbing the soil has been big for us.”

The cover crops have also been an important factor for their farm in Wisconsin’s southwest corner. Walleser’s farm sits on top of a ridge with rolling hills surrounding it. Using cover crops helps keep the topsoil on top of the hills. Using rye and triticale, Wall-Stone Holsteins is finding a use for the cover crops in its rations as well.

“We don’t want to leave acres bare,” Walleser said. “That top six inches of soil is so valuable. If that soil washes into the Mississippi, we’re not getting it back and it’s not going to help us grow the quality crops we need.”

By preserving the topsoil and finding ways to be more energy efficient, Walleser and Wall-Stone Holsteins hope to continue to be an asset to the community.

“We have a great group of neighbors that we get to work with, and we really enjoy that,” Walleser said. “Having people see that you want to do things the right way and working with your neighbors is important in this business.”

Walleser also sees the merit of hearing what consumers are looking for in products and continuing to evolve practices that meet some of those demands.

“I’m part of a generation who believes that sustainability is important to people that have no say in agriculture, other than with their dollar,” Walleser said. “The consumer cares about sustainability just as we do. The product that we’re making is going to end up on someone’s table and they want to feel good about it when they eat it. They want to know they chose a product from a family or group that cares about the same things.”