HISTOR ▶▶▶Y


California, was another, and he stayed for about a decade. They both confirm that Loper took what he was seeing at feed yards and introduced the TMR concept to dairy farmers in the Chino valley, and then beyond. Dr Willis says “it was cheaper for dairy farmers to make their own grain mixes than to buy mixes from the feed companies.” Loper believes that at the time, it delivered savings for dairy farmers of around US$ 10 per tonne of feed.


The war begins However, Dr Loper explains that the feed companies, which had been supplying concentrates and various types of com- modities and mixes to dairy farms up to that point, did not just concede defeat. In order to prevent truckloads of whole cottonseed, hominy, cotton seed meal, beet pulp, rolled bar- ley, rolled corn, wet malt and citrus pulp being delivered


directly to dairy farms where farmers would make their own TMR, the feed mills threatened the commodity brokers with pulling out their business. The feed mills also, according to Dr Loper, made him a target. “It was war,” he says. “They came to my office and threatened me. One Monday morning, I came to work and the windows were shot out. I carried a gun for the first seven years I was in business.” These California feed companies, reports Loper, were also tell- ing the dairy farmers to drop him, that he was not going to be around much longer because they ‘were going to break him’. “I did have some dairy farmers pull away, but I was young and energetic and didn’t give up,” Loper says. “And ac- tually, the more the feed companies got upset, the more the dairy farmers knew there was something big going on that they should pay attention to.” Meanwhile, Loper was also active. He got the main dairy magazine in the US at the time, The Dairyman, to let him write a column in every issue, and in exchange, he got a half- page ad. He took out other advertising as well. He was not making much money at the time, but he also decided to get a fancy car with a personalised licence plate so that he would appear to already be a success, thus attracting more business. He says that, by the late 1970s, closures of major feed compa- nies in southern California had started. It continued for the next few years, and in all, about eight firms shut their doors. “It became a trend,” says Loper, “and you cannot stop a trend.”


From The Dairyman magazine (1978). This shows Loper Systems farmer-clients in Arizona who won the Dairy Herd Improvement Association Awards for top performance. Dr Loper is to the left.


20 ▶ ALL ABOUT FEED | Volume 29, No. 8, 2021


Feed mill adaptation Hutjens notes that some feed mills across the country adapt- ed. “I think some industry consolidation happened in some states,” he says. “But overall, feed mills have been nimble and they started providing a package of minerals, additives, vita- mins, and protein supplements (e.g., a six-pound package) and farmers found it convenient to buy those products pre- mixed and easy to add to the TMR.” Other farmers, he says, still “need grain processing, steam flaking or dry grinding, for their TMR mix, and feed mills can provide that as well. And the feed mills also expanded to add nutritionist services such as ration balancing, ‘walking the herd’ and forage testing.” Hutjens notes that there can also be quality control issues when farmers directly buy truckloads of commodities. And it’s not always easy for farmers to “immediately pay for several months of feed, and storage of by-product feeds such as blood meal is not always possible or economical on the farm,” he explains. “So, feed mills still have a role to play.” Daugherty agrees that other feed companies “realised there was still profit to be made in delivering bulk purchases to farms, even if they were not doing as much TMR mixing themselves.” Looking back, Loper describes those early days of TMR as “ex- citing.” He says his favourite thing about spreading the word was saving his dairy farmers money and his aim was to provide valuable services that would remain valuable for decades and not just years to come.


PHOTO: DAN LOPER


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