The Nettinga Farm History
Back in the 1940’s, Michael’s great-grandpa, Garret Nettinga, bought the farm. He actually rented out the farm, while he and his family lived about 2 miles away. At that time the dairy was not yet established.
Following deployment from the Korean War, Garret’s son (Michael’s Grandpa), Morris, bought the farm and began farming. He added beef cows to the farm but then in the 60’s he switched to Dairy cows. Of course back then everything was done by hand, then later a stanchion barn was added.
As the years went by, Grandpa Morris continued to slowly buy more land near the farm that we know of now.. Grandpa Morris and Grandma Vergie built a life together and had seven kids. One of those kids, Merrill (Michael’s dad) had interest in the farm. Merrill married Marlys in 1985. Shortly after that, Grandpa Morris started having strokes and unfortunately, died way too early. In the mid 80’s Merrill and Marlys then took over the farm. They then had 2 sons, Mitchell and Michael.
Today, M&M Dairy, is now composted of 100 Holstein cows and 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans. Michael and I, along with Michael’s brother, Mitchell and wife, Amber, would be the fourth generation to be apart of the farm.
Over the years the farm has had new barns built, a shop, a silage pad added, lagoon built, as well as a herringbone milking parlor in the early 2000’s.
Our newest addition on the dairy (that we are SO excited about!) is the addition of two Lely Robotic milkers. With this comes an expansion to the milk room as well as the freestall barn. We hope to be using our new robots by May 15 of this year!
As far as crop production goes, we use minimum tillage methods, cultivating in the spring, and this past year, trying our first round of cover crops. We are always willing to try new things, as well as continually working to ensure our soils stay healthy.
We would not be where we are today without the work that those before us did. We would also not be here today without Mama Marlys’ parents, Marv & Merna Van’t Hul. They also still do a lot around the farm and have helped us tremendously with business decisions around.
As we look forward to 2023, we are excited to enter this new chapter with the robotic milkers. We know that there will be a large learning curve, but we are excited to see how this opportunity will open up our lives in a whole new way.
