Traditional dairy farmers grow and process their feed rations - a very labour intensive activity. The feed centers of the larger dairy farms in Israel started " selling " TMR feed rations to nearby dairy farmers and today many farms in Israel buy these TMR rations.

By its large scale, feed centre can buy the ingredients at lower prices and store/process these more professionaly.

In a Dutch study published recently, the regional feed centre required less " energy " per ration than on farm feed preparation. We were involved in the establishment of the first Dutch regional feed centre , which supplies already more than 3000 rations per day and farmers have seen increased production yields for their cows.

Feed centres enable the farmer to overbridge the problem of his supply of fodder ( which is in short periods & seasonal ) and the consitent quality feed ration he needs for his cows. No green fodder, but the same material is stored in pits, where it is transformed into silage, which is a conservation system which actually also improves the digestability of the fodder.

Well designed & manged silage pits, also reduce the wastes and eliminates the danger of environmental contamination - mainly of the natural water resources around the farm.

Recently new ideas have been developed for processing the TMR itself, by using a container system and also innovative delivery / packaging methods are being used. Vacuum packed TMR which has a shelf life of one year, is being delivered to very small farmers, reducing transportation costs and enabling them to provide their animals with fresh feed rations every day.