The family-run Skottorps Manor consists of two farms with a total of 1.330 dairy cows, a number of young cattle and animals for slaughter. The cows produce 13 million litres of milk a year. Last year’s drought hit farms hard in the area. Lars Inge Gunnarsson’s farms were among them. Last year they got 70 per cent less grain, grass and corn against the normal. In order to cope with the winter Gunnarsson purchased straw and gräsfröhalm from Denmark for sek 1.5 million.

– In the years it has become dry extremely early. We see already that there is very little water in our dams, ” says Lars Inge Gunnarsson.

Lars Inge Gunnarsson. Photo: Maria Eriksson

whipping up dust and soil from the dry, uncultivated land around the farm.

” this time of year we usually have 10 to 20 per cent of feed left in the layer, but if a month from today, it is empty. It is very difficult to run a farm with so small margins, ” says Lars Inge Gunnarsson.

Already the 11th of april began bevattningsmaskinerna be out in the fields and spray the water from the river Lagan and Stensån and from bevattningsdammarna. Further bevattningsmaskin has been purchased for the summer, but irrigation is expensive and labor intensive.

With the hard winds, that blown the last few days, see Lars Inge Gunnarsson expensive drops disappear with the wind, but he is at the same time grateful that the ground is covered by höstvetet which retains the water that falls down on the ground.

” It feels as if the weather is increasingly causing problems for us farmers. In the past we were able to optimize the production after poor years. Now, if it will be another year of low production, there may be problems, ” says Lars Inge Gunnarsson.

the issue of feed shortage has meant that even the cows had to adapt to a diet that is fortunately appreciated by the cows. Photo: Maria Eriksson

– We give the cows gräsfröhalm instead of grass, and even ensilerat beet tops, so the leaves from the sugar beet. It is not the things they usually eat, but they seem more than happy with the food, ” says Lars Inge Gunnarsson.

” No, emergency slaughter is not an option for us. We must instead try to find other ways to solve the problem, ” says Gunnarsson.

Reservplanen for Skottorps Manor is about to water the early, to create as much stock as it can go and in the worst cases, complete with fiberfoder in pelletized form.

increased by 70 hectares to create larger reserves. Moreover, Gunnarsson made a new djupvattenbrunn, in addition to the three that already exist to provide the animals with water. The 160-meter-long pipe going through the mud and sand, and contains a pump which pumps up water from the 79 meters deep.

– the Pump gives us 15.000 liters of water (15 cubic metres) in an hour. If it delivers what it promises, it is great. Last year we made off with roughly 100 cubic meters of water per day for the entire Skottorpsanläggningen, ” says Gunnarsson.

The fastest and easiest action to save the feed to the farm ends with slaktuppfödningen of 120 purchased bulls per year, since the bulls eat the same feed as cows.

– So crazy, it should not be. But for safety’s sake, I have already reserved gräshalm and straw from a producer in Denmark, ” says Lars Inge Gunnarsson.

Read more: State of the groundwater is considerably lower than last year