Dairy farming requires daily dedication, investment and, often, resilience. It is also an activity that has shown the presence of women, as shown by Canal Rural in the series 'Milk Guardians'.
The landscape that brings together green pastures, a beautiful pond and Dutch cows looks like a painting. But on the Frey family property in Venâncio Aires (RS), the scene represents women's work. Marina is the third generation in the family's milk production. Before, the work was very different, explains the producer.
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“Everything was very simple, there were few animals. It was a mix of Jersey and Dutch. Today, we only work with the Dutch breed. We had buckets at our feet. I remember being a child and seeing my mother and grandmother taking milk and putting it in jars, immersed in the cold water from the cooler,” recalls Marina Frey.
Five decades later, everything has changed. In total, 220 cows are the responsibility of Marina, who works with her husband and father. Together, they take care of the production of feed and feeding the animals. She deals directly with the cows, which ranges from insemination to health care. She emphasizes that she studied for this.
“I took an insemination course. I can track the best time to inseminate. I’m always here on the property and this has helped us a lot in terms of artificial insemination,” she explains. “I also took genetic improvement courses to be able to identify, here on our property, what type of animal we wanted and what we would need to improve on the animals we already had,” continues the milk producer.
Biologist and dedicated to dairy farming
Photo: Wenderson Araujo/CNA
Initially, however, Marina Frey's intention was not to continue working in the countryside. So much so that she left and graduated in biology. However, in 2018, this feeling of love for the property made her return and, since then, she has dedicated herself to improving some work techniques to overcome the lack of labor and, consequently, increase the production of the herd.
One of the first changes was a warehouse. compost barn, which provides greater comfort and health for the cows. The automation of the food supply and the adoption of a milking robot also came into effect. 3 liters are removed per day as soon as the cow passes through the gate and the need for milking is identified.
“When I returned, we went to see other properties to see how we would do it, since our facilities could no longer handle the number of animals we had and the labor force was scarce,” says the rural producer. “It was me, my father and my mother — and we couldn’t manage all the animals. We either stopped or invested,” she continues. In this sense, she highlights that the family decided, about two decades ago, to continue working in the fields.
“We decided to invest in order to continue the dairy business, which has always been the farm’s main source of income,” he says. “So that we could milk more cows, because we have been working on genetics for over 20 years. We have animals with a lot of productive capacity, but we only milked them twice. There was no way to make these animals produce more due to the labor.”
I work with determination and dedication
Photo: Freepik
Marina is the middle daughter of Mr. Írio's three daughters. And she was the one who kept going, learning the business the hard way, taking courses and qualifications so that the family would not give up on dairy farming. Her relationship with the business began early, her father recalls.
“She [Marina] was different. When I couldn’t find her, she was playing with a little calf and the others weren’t. That’s exactly why she came back [to the family’s rural property],” says Írio Frey, who admits: he is very proud of his daughter. Thus, before her own father’s eyes, Marina teaches, always with ease and hard work, that dairy farming is also a feminine space.
“We are very detail-oriented, that’s what sets us apart. Not everything is brute force. A lot of it is about skill, handling, management. I believe that more and more women are standing their ground and saying: ‘Here on my property, I’m the one who does things, I’m the one who runs it, I’m the one who manages it’. Obviously we have help, but everything always goes through female management.”
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Photo: City Hall of Aceguá-RS
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