Commitment to cows, community

CARRINGTON, N.D. — VanBedaf Dairy was recently recognized on a national stage for taking an extra step in cow care and in their community.

VanBedaf Dairy was awarded the 2025 National Beef Quality Assurance Dairy Award in early February. Piet van Bedaf has been farming full time since 2015 and is in a partnership with his parents, Conny and Corne, at their 1,650-cow dairy near Carrington. Piet’s brother, Dries, also helps out on the farm.

“It was always my plan to come back to the farm after college,” van Bedaf said.

Van Bedaf and his wife, Taryn, went to San Antonio, Texas, to receive their award from the National Cattleman’s Beef Association during Cattle Con.

“We won the dairy farm portion of the award, which was very exciting,” van Bedaf said.

The National Cattleman’s Beef Association has five categories for their beef quality awards: cow-calf; feed yard; marketers, as in sales barns; educator; and dairy operations.

“We were able to meet the people that won the other awards and were very honored to have been in the same room with those people because they had some really good operations,” van Bedaf said.

The van Bedafs were nominated by Lisa Pederson, a North Dakota State University Extension livestock specialist. The van Bedafs were nominated because of their diligent employee training and community outreach.

“She thought we had a good chance at winning the award,” van Bedaf said. “We were hesitant because it is a beef quality award and you don’t always think of beef quality on a dairy farm.”

Even though the van Bedafs do not finish out their beef calves, they qualify because their beef calves and cull cows enter the food supply.

At VanBedaf Dairy, cows are milked in a double-24 parallel parlor and all replacements are raised onsite. Heifers are genomic tested and results are used to determine breeding decisions, van Bedaf said. The top 80% of the heifers are bred with sorted Holstein semen and the bottom 20% are bred to beef. For the cows, the top 40% are bred with sorted Holstein semen and the bottom 60% are bred to beef. The beef calves are sold at 2-8 days old and the Holsteins remain on the farm for their lifespan.

All employees at VanBedaf Dairy receive training, work with a mentor within their area for one month and sign a mandatory letter of commitment to treat animals as humanely as possible.

“We have protocols for everything on our farm from vaccinations to parlor management,” van Bedaf said. “It’s all on paper, but we feel it is best to learn from someone that’s actually doing it and can show them in person.”

Van Bedaf’s mother, Conny, sister, Maartje, and brother-in-law, Casey, own and operate Cows and Co Creamery, 3 miles from VanBedaf Dairy.

About 1% of milk from VanBedaf Dairy goes to Cows and Co Creamery where it is made into gelato, Gouda cheese, cheddar cheese curds, European-style drinkable yogurt, and A2A2 white and chocolate milk. The rest of the milk from the dairy is shipped to Bongards. The creamery is situated on an old dairy farm and the original milk house is used as an on-farm store. Cows and Co Creamery also has a retail location in Fargo, delivers to more than 10 cities in North Dakota, and ships Gouda cheese and gelato nationwide.

Van Bedaf shows the world what happens on their farm through his YouTube channel, Piet Van Bedaf — ND Dairy Farmer.

“I post a video once a week, on Wednesdays,” van Bedaf said. “I have been doing that for the past couple of years, (showing) different things I do around the farm, from crops to cows to calves.”

The van Bedaf farm and family are involved with their community by hosting regular tours of their dairy farm throughout the year. The farm opens its doors to the general public, export buyers, university classes and elementary classes, van Bedaf said. The farm hosts a tour group almost weekly. Every other year, the farm hosts an open house the first Sunday in June. This year the open house will be June 1.

“We feel it is important to give tours because consumers are getting further and further removed from agriculture and people are asking more and more questions about where their food comes from and how the cows are being treated,” van Bedaf said. “We feel the best way to answer those questions is by bringing people out to our farm so they can see for themselves. (Then) they can make those decisions for themselves versus (us) just telling them this is how cows are taken care of.”