Ola Gård – healthy and efficient organic herd

Ola Gård is an organic dairy farm and meat producer outside Uppsala, Sweden. We met Lasse and Sölvi Ekström and the new owner, Fredrik Murray, on a warm spring day. Lasse's family has owned Ola Gård for 90 years. He himself has run the farm for 42 years.

Thirty years ago, Lasse started thinking about crossbreeding his cows, like the routine breeding strategy for pig and chicken production. The idea was confirmed at the event Dairy Farm Days 2012 during a talk on ProCROSS. For Lasse and Sölvi, ProCROSS has been a mainstay of their herd since that day.

They currently milk 420 cows and raise 70 steers per year. Prior to starting with ProCROSS, only milk was produced on the farm. ProCROSS, in combination with a lot of natural pasture, has made it possible to also focus on meat production. "If it wasn't for ProCROSS, we wouldn't be breeding steers," says Lasse.

Lasse and Sölvi think ProCROSS is ideal for them as organic producers. Their cows walk long distances to pasture every day - up to 2 km.

The biggest change they have noticed with ProCROSS is that the cows are healthier and eat all day long in the pasture.

"It's on the pasture that ProCROSS animals do their best," according to Sölvi. The Ekströms notice that their ProCROSS cows have a higher feed conversion efficiency both on pasture and in the barn than they did with their former purebred herd.

ProCROSS has also resulted in a sharp decrease in mastitis, calving is smoother, and newborn calves are alert and strong.

Ola Gård Farm, Sweden

• Farmer of the Year 2021
• 420 cows, 100% ProCROSS
• System: organic
• Performance: 10,300 kg ECM, 4.6% fat, 3.5% protein
• Animal health: 1% mastitis; 3% other diseases