Friday, June 4, 2021
CapitalPress.com
5
Tarping silage is a family affair at van Loon Dairy. Back row, from left, are Kryn, Terri
and Jeremy (son), Melissa and Ben (son) and Kryn’s daughter Ashley Zuidema. Grand-
kids, front row, from left, are Cailynn, Cole, Kasey, Tess, Jameson, Paige, Easton, Kin-
ley, Cash and Brantley. Kryn’s wife, Irene, is behind the camera.
VAN LOON DAIRY
With a busy interstate for a
neighbor, farming is interesting
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
JEFFERSON, Ore. —
Being next to the busiest inter-
state highway in Oregon pro-
vides van Loon Dairy with a
unique farming experience.
“That stretch between
Albany and Salem is one of
the straightest sections of I-5
but the most accidents hap-
pen right there,” Ben van
Loon said. “I’ll get calls from
friends and family asking how
the freeway is over here.”
The dairy, purchased by
Garrit and Ann van Loon in
1970, is now in its third gen-
eration of the family. Garrit’s
son, Kryn, and his wife, Irene,
now own and operate the dairy
and are gradually handing off
the business to their sons, Ben
and Jeremy. The brothers have
taken over much of the man-
agement of the farm that milks
about 400 cows from a total
herd of 850.
Lately the van Loons have
focused on growing as much
of their feed as possible, ded-
icating 70-80% of their 400
acres to grass and corn silage.
This year they are also grow-
ing squash for a local cannery.
Though the van Loon herd
is predominantly Holstein
with Brown Swiss and Red
Holstein,
they
also
cross breed
cows.
“My Dad
likes the red,
so anything
Ben
that would
van Loon
throw a red
— Red Hol-
stein, Nor-
wegian Red…,” van Loon
said. “We try to keep a high-
er-component herd and so we
are not necessarily pushing for
production.
“We might seek a low-
er-producing Holstein but one
that tends to have higher com-
ponents,” he said. “This is
why we went into our crosses
— higher butterfat, higher
protein with high production
and sort of trying to get the
best of both worlds.”
Their milk averages more
than 4% butterfat. The co-op,
Darigold, pays extra when it is
above 3.5%.
The ladies in the cow barn
snuggle into spacious water-
beds at night, but a herd of
9-month-old heifers went
on an unplanned walk-about
a few years ago during a
thunderstorm.
“It blew out a herd of about
60 heifers pastured along the
freeway; no one really knows
how,” van Loon said. “Some
people actually chased them
along Highway 99E until the
cows made a U-turn in some-
body’s yard.”
Someone knew where the
cows belonged and used his
truck to herd the wanderers
back to the van Loon farm.
“They didn’t even wake
us up; they just put them back
on the other side of the cattle
guard,” van Loon said. “The
next morning, we saw they
were in the other pasture.”
Police called late the next
afternoon, reporting a dozen
Holstein heifers still huddled
beneath an underpass on the
other side of the freeway. They
must have broken off from the
rest of the group, he said.
The farm’s high visibility
has occasionally been a source
of conversation in the farming
community, like the year they
planted grass seed where they
typically grew corn.
“I heard from a farmer that
someone had said, ‘Looks
like van Loons are going out
of business. They’re planting
grass seed,’” he said.
“I’m out in the country but
about 50,000 cars pass by my
farm every day,” van Loon
said. “Sometimes I think we
should figure out a way to take
advantage of that.”
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