Clean Water Profile: Mauricio Rosales

Our Clean Water Profile series continues with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s Mauricio Rosales. Mauricio is the Senior Agriculture Projects Manager out of the Alliance’s Lancaster office, and he kindly sat down with us to discuss generational woes within the dairy industry, farm management styles around the world, and the beauty of the Susquehanna River. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Kara Siglin: Tell me a little about your story: where you are now, the work you do, and how you got there.

Mauricio with a group on a Pennsylvania farm.

Mauricio Rosales: I moved to the United States from Ecuador twelve years ago to work on dairy farms in the Midwest. I started in a 600-cow dairy in Wisconsin as a herdsman, and I did that for a couple of years. Soon, though, I was pursuing a Master’s degree in Animal Science with a focus on dairy at the University of Minnesota. After I graduated, I wanted to work in extension to provide educational opportunities for farmers, so I found a job with Penn State University to be the Extension Dairy Educator in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I moved from Minnesota to Pennsylvania in 2016.

Unfortunately, the dairy industry at the time and even now has been struggling with low milk prices, and every time I visited farms it was always the same tone, like, “We don’t have enough money to make ends meet and survive the coming years.” The farmers were very concerned about their facilities getting old, and they didn’t have a good plan with how to move forward. Although my educational programming was helping the farmers with some things, it was not enough. I thought, Let’s find something that can really help them attain more resources. This Senior Agriculture Projects Manager job at the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay was available and I thought it was a great fit. I am now able to provide farmers with not only educational opportunities but also financial resources. We secure grants and we work with different partners and corporations to bring technical and financial assistance to those farmers. We implement the projects that are going to help them to be sustainable in the long run. It feels very good to be able to support this community and to make sure that the next generation has an option if they want to continue farming.

KS: Why dairy farming for you, as opposed to other animal production systems?

A herd of dairy cows on a Pennsylvania farm.

MR: I was raised and born in a big city in Ecuador. I didn’t have a farm or any sort of connection to farming growing up, except for helping out on an orchard and with a few animals in the summers. That started my curiosity about food production and farming. I went to a local university in Ecuador and graduated with a degree in farming sciences, but at the end of my studies there, I wasn’t sure what I was going to pursue. I knew it was going to be related to animal production, but I wasn’t sure exactly what kind. Then, this opportunity to go to the United States to work in dairy farming came up. At the time, I had little to no exposure to dairy cows. Initially I was actually afraid of them, because they’re big animals! But then, I realized that they’re more afraid of us than we should be afraid of them. I figured this was the least stinky animal production system; when I compared them to pigs or chickens, I was like, I think I can tolerate this! I just stuck with it, and I started to like it more and more.

KS: You’ve lived in quite a few places, both internationally and in the States. How do you see farming looking different in each place you've lived?

MR: Let’s start with the United States, because it’s such a large and diverse country and what we have on the East Coast is completely different compared to the Midwest. The Midwest is mostly large farms with large extensions of land. The farms can produce cheap food and can have a significant number of cows. They’re basically large business farms, and their end goal is to make money. Then, when I moved to Pennsylvania, I realized that all of what I learned in the Midwest was completely different. In the Midwest, there will be maybe 300 farms occupying the whole county, whereas here in Lancaster, we’ll have probably 2000 farms for the same surface area. It’s different management and a completely different type of farming, and that really was something that I had to learn. Here, we have different challenges, weather, soils, and communities. We’re very proud of working with the Plain Sects, but they do have their limitations. They don’t use equipment or electricity, so that really brought the next level of challenges for me regarding how we can help them. If you go to the West coast, they have other issues, related to water, for instance. Here, we have a lot of water, but the quality is the problem.

Members of a Pennsylvania Plain Sect community.

Now, going back to home in Ecuador, dairy is for really small farmers. What we call small farmers here could be a farm that has 50-80 cows with maybe 60-80 acres. Down there, we’re talking about someone having three or four cows and four or five acres at the most. For the most part, all of the cows are just grazing; they’re not fed anything else, whereas here we supplement them with grains, forages, and hay. Being able to grow grass year-round is an advantage, but unfortunately, the infrastructure is very bad. Roads are bad, and many of the farms are in the middle of nowhere, so their product is difficult to access. They have to sometimes put it on mules or horses and take it to the closest collection point. Refrigeration is also a challenge. But something they all have in common, American and Ecuadorian farmers, and all farmers across the world, is that farming is a very tough activity that doesn’t make much money. The people that do it are really passionate about it and care about their animals and the land, but unfortunately many of them don’t have enough money to continue, or to be sustainable in the long run.

KS: What challenges do you see in working to protect the Chesapeake Bay in Pennsylvania, especially in the agricultural sector?

A farm conservation project.

MR: Right now, I would say that one of the biggest challenges that we have across the whole region is that we don’t have enough technical assistance. Ten years ago, the problem was that we didn’t have enough money. Now, we don’t have enough professionals to provide all the needed technical assistance to move these projects forward, so we are experiencing a bottleneck. We need more engineers and more planners. It is very difficult to find someone that wants to work in agriculture. Many of the engineers that are fresh out of school prefer to go somewhere else where they can make more money, so finding someone that cares about the farming community and the Bay is becoming more and more difficult to come by. Unfortunately, I can see how this is going to be a problem that continues to get worse and worse.

KS: Have you worked with any Pennsylvania farmers that have utilized the Agriculture Conservation Assistance Program (ACAP) yet?

MR: Yes! ACAP is a good option for those farmers that are willing to go through the process and to work collaboratively with the state and with the local conservation districts. We do have some farmers that are progressive and they don’t care where the money is coming from, don’t mind completing forms and signing contracts. If they are willing, then ACAP is picking up the tab 90% co-share, which is excellent. We are interested in supporting this program in the future. We like to have options, farmers like to have options, and this is one good option. Fingers crossed that they can continue the program and come up with the money to support it.

KS: We’ve talked about some of the challenges that you see in your job. What’s the most interesting or rewarding part? Why do you do what you do?

A group discussing conservation possibilities.

MR: I enjoy helping farmers to be sustainable because I want to have food security, and I want to see those farmers continuing their activities. Many times, I have started a sustainability project where the farmer was a bit hesitant, because it’s a huge undertaking; it’s a complete transformation of their operation and their management, but it’s incredible to see their behavior afterwards. The process sometimes is painful, but in the end, they’re happy about having their project completed because it is helping them to be more effective, to be more efficient with their time, to be better stewards, and to have a legacy for their families. There’s a better start for the next generation. That’s something they’re also trying to accomplish, because unfortunately the farming community is getting older by the day. Many of the younger generation see their parents’ or grandparents’ problems and don’t want to take over. When we have a farm that’s in good shape and that’s going to be sustainable, we are increasing the chances that we’ll have the next generation joining the business. That is my motivation to move forward.

KS: Are you seeing the same generational issues in Plain Sect farming communities as you do on the big farms in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic?

Dairy cows on a Pennsylvania farm.

MR: It’s not as bad, but it is happening. I have had farmers telling me that their children don’t want to continue dairy. One of my farmer friends’ oldest son started a construction job and found that it was both easier and paid more than farming. With that being said, it does happen that some of these new Amish generations are looking into what other alternatives they have, but I think for the most part they’re still interested in doing dairy. It’s part of their culture. I believe that they think that by having dairy cows, they’re going to stay out of trouble; they’re always busy, there’s always something to do. So, it is happening, but not at the same speed as it’s happening with the other farmers.

KS: Easy question for you now! Do you ever get to get out on the Susquehanna River?

MR: I have a couple of times, yes. It was fantastic. The last time I got out was last summer, someone took us on an evening boat ride out there, and it was the loveliest sunset I have seen in my life. The weather, the breeze… it was just about perfect. That gives me motivation to keep going with my work and keep improving the health of the Susquehanna. Overall, anywhere next to the water is my happy place.

KS: That’s how I feel, too. Final question. What value do you see in being part of the Choose Clean Water Coalition?

MR: I think that the Choose Clean Water Coalition brings us together and, most importantly, is our ear to the ground for an organization such as the Alliance that is less involved in the political issues. The Coalition brings a lot of awareness and translates what is happening at the state and federal level and puts it in a little capsule that we can digest. Bringing everybody together across the region is so important, too. We are very happy to be part of the Coalition; we learn from you, we collaborate with you, and we are passionate about many of the same things.

Kara Siglin is the Coalition’s Communications Intern