Earlier this month, Lely opened its doors to the public by holding a grand opening of its new state-of-the-art business complex, Lely Park.
Centered around, “A sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future in farming,” the company invested $23 million to help support its long-term vision.
“With the opening of this new campus, Lely’s goals are to inspire future generations by providing innovative farming solutions that directly impact customers and Lely Centers throughout the U.S. and Canada,” Chad Huyser, president of Lely North America stated. “With this expansion, Lely will be able to significantly increase its production capacity in order to meet the growing needs of our North American farmers.”
Special guests included Andre van Troost, Lely International CEO, and Alexander van der Lely, chairman of the board and owner. A roundtable that featured two Lely customers: Michael De Jong from ELBI Dairy in Manitoba, Canada and Clayton Hemminger of Hemdale Farms from Seneca Castle, N.Y. and was moderated by Gijs Scholman, chief commercial officer, Lely International. The producers shared their journey of transitioning from a conventional milking setup to a robotic facility.
“Our vision, which strives to meet the needs and demands of our customers, continues to drive and inspire us,” Huyser shared.
Strategic Marketing Manager of Lely North America, Xavier Drake, believes that Lely plays an important role in helping producers overcome the many challenges that face them, like labor availability, cost of environmental pressures and sustainability components.
“We have a product line that is very much developed off our vision statement, which is to provide that sustainable, profitable and enjoyable future in farming,” he says. “Our dairy industry is facing a host of macro-environmental pressures. Our products seek to automate redundant tasks on farm and provide some sense of control over those pressures to support long term success for our customers.”
As more producers have leaned into adopting technology on their farms, Xavier believes that more herds are seeing the real benefits that technology offers.
“ Lely believes that the overall success of a dairy operation is contingent on the cow,” Drake says. “A cow that’s comfortable in her environment 24/7 and free to live as she wishes will yield positive outcomes. So to be able to offer that through our product lines while also providing cost savings is a win for all involved.”
Lely broke ground on their new Pella, Iowa site in late 2020. The company currently employs 60 people at the Lely Park campus, with additional growth planned throughout North America.
Demand for robotic milking has increased over the last few years and Drake believes future demand looks strong.
“The last couple of years, we've seen steady growth in adoption of robotics and this year is no different,” Drake says. “We believe this trend will only continue.”
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