ST ISIDORE -- Arnold Kuratli is an enterprising dairy and crop farmer who has invested in horse hay for export and he believes local farmers can cash in too. By his figures, a farmer with 200 acres can earn a living selling top quality hay. If he’s right, his plan will offer a new market for struggling farmers.

 A carpenter by trade, Kuratli started a construction company in his native Switzerland when he was 22, in 1981, increasing the number of company employees to 40 in one year. It was also the same year he emigrated to Canada and St. Isidore with his wife Anna and two children, hoping to become a full-time crop farmer. But he quickly found you couldn’t make a living on crops with 375 acres.

He built a new dairy barn in 1994, expanded in 1996 and became a licensed grain trader in 1997. Today he’s milking 95 cows, plants on 1,100 acres and has about 450 customers for his grain business.

The man never sits still except to think. Management of the dairy operation has been turned over to the farm’s next generation so he could embark on a hay producing and marketing project that could literally revolutionize Ontario farming.

He’s betting that a farmer with 200 acres can make a living producing for the hay market, as long as the land is debt free. “If a farmer has low input costs, he can net $200 per acre,” he says. The payout per acre is the same as for soybeans, he adds, but 90 per cent of the crop has to qualify for the top of the horse market.

If a farmer can achieve that result consistently, Kurlatli says he can guarantee him a contract that will provide a livable income.

“This (producing quality hay) is not an easy thing,” he says. “I’m looking for some smart young guys who are prepared to do what it takes to produce really good hay on forward contracts.” Before if he signs you up he’ll want you to take part in his company’s crop management plan, which includes seminars on how, among other things, to fertilize and meet color standards, which means making hay as green as a St. Patrick’s Day parade.

In the summer of 2005, Kuratli, never at rest, spied in Europe some fancy wrapped hay in clear packages designed for pets and horses. The hay can be easily transferred in a car and the plastic keeps it fresh. But when he tried to market through Canadian Tire he found the cost of shelf space prohibitive.

He looked for other possibilities and found that there was a high demand for hay across the world from Florida to Iran for horses. But the problem was cost of transportation. To meet that challenge, he contacted a firm in Europe to build him a machine with conveyers that would double compress hay into a single 25cm X 36cm X 62 cm bale of 50 pounds.

The system works like this: Farmers send their round or large square bales to Kuratli, who takes them apart, then wraps and labels them like a product in a grocery store. The hay then leaves for market either as wrapped units by themselves or on a palette that can fill a shipping container.

But before that happens the hay will have to pass through quality checks, including an infrared light that detects a variance from the color green, along with a system to separate sticks, mice and stones. Next year, Kuratli’s company, North South Haying Transaction Inc., will open a lab to test quality.

The biggest barrier to making good hay comes from leaving old, rotting hay in the field, he says.

He says his idea of selling hay in clear bags has been a big hit in Florida where he spent eight days marketing his idea with feed stores. The stores and customers like choice, broken down into grasses and legumes or combinations. He separates first, second and third cut hay. One store, he said, wants to buy one truckload per week.

The processing machine will be in operation this November and the first hay for Florida will hit the road in December of this year.

Before you sign up, you will be expected to go through some hay management meetings. Call 613-764-0216 for more information.

 Pencil the costs

Number of tonnes hay from 1 acre ₌ 3.5

Value of hay per tonne = $120

Value of hay per acre = $420