District farmer shows passion for pastures

When he first arrived in Canada from Germany some 12 years ago, Amos Brielmann was amazed by all the space and land that was available.
“The first time I came here it was in June and I thought, ‘This is paradise,’” Brielmann said Saturday morning over breakfast in his Pinewood kitchen.
Conversation over toast and coffee was predominantly in German as Brielmann and his wife, Heide, chatted with their son, Timo, daughter, Susanne, visiting family members from Germany, a Swiss farmer from down the road, and over the phone with neighbouring farmers.
Although they’ve spent most of their lives in Germany, the Brielmanns have been in Rainy River District for the past 10 years and now run one of the area’s largest beef farms.
Brielmann left a small family farm in Germany when his employer mentioned his son, in Canada, who was in search of someone to manage his property.
After going through two years of paperwork, Wolfgang Schmutz was able to prove to the federal government that he needed the Brielmanns for the job.
“The [government] wanted us to have $220,000 and a business plan,” Brielmann recalled. “If you had the money from drug dealing, you could still get across.”
While Brielmann said he is still getting used to life here, his farming experience in Germany and research here must be paying off. Including calves, bulls, yearlings, and customers’ cows, the Brielmanns now handle roughly 1,700 head and manage more than 4,000 acres of land.
Surprisingly, Brielmann is the most passionate about his pastures and the quality of the grass.
“I have to move one herd of cows to a different place. In order to make my land productive for grass, I have to find a system that’s more productive,” Brielmann explained as he headed out for a day’s work.
After a short drive, Brielmann crouched down in an ungrazed pasture, studying the stalks and the ground, looking at the mulch and young growth.
“We switched it from a grain farm to a grass farm in ’97,” he said.
A few metres away, his wife was almost hidden by the tall grass.
“People tell me it’s wasteful but I get more grass than I can handle and every year I get more grass, it’s like putting money in the bank,” he explained.
Standing among a herd of cattle, he grabbed a handful of fairly mature grass, the tops of which are gone, while a nearby cow stood a few feet away, grass hanging from its mouth.
“She eats the young stuff for protein and the tops for fiber,” Brielmann noted.
Brielmann has been trying to get the most out of his land by rotating his stock from pasture to pasture on a weekly–sometimes even daily–basis.
“I try to have them in smaller paddocks and change their paddock very frequently,” he remarked.
Rather than cut and bale more hay, he allows his cattle to eat what they like for nourishment even though some edible grass may be trampled.
Any grass that matures too much for the cows to eat, or gets trampled, turns into a natural mulch, adding to the quality of the soil.
Brielmann also has managed to extend his grazing season. He hasn’t fed his cows since April 9 and will let them graze until the snow is too deep. The cows will continue to dig up the grass until the snow is over their eyes when they dig down.
Brielmann still must purchase up to 3,500 bales of hay from other farmers to winter his stock but is trying to reduce that each year.
Leaving a 40-acre family farm in Germany was quite a change for the Brielmanns but they have no regrets.
“I would never go back, I would never have been able to do what I do over here in Germany. It’s just a rat race, we have a decent life here,” he said.
“The biggest difference is that you do not own the land [in Germany], it belongs to your kids or grandchildren,” he noted. “You want to pass on the land to your kids and you pass it on in better shape than your farm.
“To sell land over there is a sin. You want your kids to farm,” he stressed. “Here you can change your land like your underwear–here the land has a dollar sign.”
Brielmann said rules and regulations are much more stringent in Germany. For example, every tree is mapped and if a farmer were to cut one down without permission, he would be fined.
At the same time, he added more attention should be paid to the well-being of the farming industry in Canada.
“Canada relies on the export market, I think it’s such a stupid thing,” he argued. “They think we have a land of plenty but 50 years down the road, we won’t have it–it’s just take what you can and don’t think of tomorrow.”
Another hurdle Brielmann could do without in the farming industry is its volatile nature.
“Farmers can’t say ‘I have this and this is what I want for it.’ You just have to put it in an auction and hope someone buys it,” he noted.
And, he added, unlike many industrial or commercial businesses, he can’t change a product in mid-stride.
“You can’t just stop feeding an animal,” he remarked. “I have to make a decision today for almost three years down the road.”