A Sheep Farm
Jala Yaseen meticulously tracks his flock of more than 1,000 sheep: Their health, their output, how they’ve been bred.
He does it by hand. He laments that he’s buried in papers.
Yaseen has modernized his sheep farm and wants to do more, but the investment of as much as a third of a year’s profit in a computer-operated milking and tracking system is one that he just can’t muster for now.
Still, his success in unrivaled.
“He is the No. 1 sheep farmer in all of the West Bank,” Dr. Jehad El-Ebrahim says in reference to Yaseen’s flock of 1,200 animals, a six-fold increase since Yaseen began.
El-Ebrahim serves as an advisor to the minister of agriculture in the West Bank and has been in contact with Yaseen to help further develop youth agribusiness projects in the region. By partnering with the World Bank, El-Ebrahim has looked to bring more investment to the area along with the help of the Near East Foundation, whose focus is to help connect Palestinian and Israeli farmers to share advice and knowledge.
Having started with 200 sheep, Yaseen has quickly expanded his farm. Focusing on milk, yogurt and cheese production as well as breeding, Yaseen has improved the health of his farm and flock in most every way.
By utilizing special breeding techniques and keeping his sheep well-cared-for Yaseen has increased his production and been able to expand his land to 10 dunam (roughly 2.5 acres).
“I use byproducts of olive trees,” Yaseen says. “Agricultural waste – orange juice and olive byproducts – is used for sheep feed as an organic material. As a result the feed tastes better. By not using animal protein fodder my animals are healthier.”
By taking better care of the herd’s diet, Yaseen has looked to ensure that his sheep are able to produce milk and are healthy for breeding. This focus on health extends to the organization of the sheep’s pens.
“A newborn gets its own pen, and the new mew stays for a day. They feed it with the milk of the mother. After one day we shift to the organic blend,” Yaseen says. Pointing to pens down the farm, he explains how the sheep are organized. “These are the new sheep, 3 months are next to them, then the 6-month-olds. They slowly work their way up based on age.”
Each sheep has its own special tag to track where it is originally from in addition to other key information.
“A blue tag is from Nordia, yellow is Sarona, and red is Dalia. Each color is a different place (in Israel). I continue to study each farm over the lifetime of a sheep to determine where the best sheep comes from and then will buy more from there,” Yaseen says.
Not only is the source of the sheep important, but so is the breeding between sheep from different places.
“I mix different sheep from different farms to make them stronger,” Yaseen says.
He explained that by combining sheep from different farms the crossing of genes tends to make the next generation stronger and more resistant to certain diseases, which can have a dramatic effect on milk production. A year ago 120 sheep were infected with a disease and they stopped producing.
“It costs a lot to cover the medicine and the feed, and when the sheep are not producing milk you operate at a loss. And when a sheep dies from a disease it sets you even further back,” Yaseen says.
While Yaseen has made significant advancements he admitted that his farming practices could be improved with the help of a computer and some new equipment.
“You can follow the sheep on the computer by using a code number. Currently I hand write all their numbers in my office. I sit in the office and see how many liter of milk each produces. If I used a computer I could see without any work in the office,” he said.
Not only would Yaseen save time he could also increase production by saving product that would normally spoil.
“The computer system has multiple benefits. It does two things. It tests the quality and quantity. So when it gets to a specified level the machine will shut off. The machine I have (now) cannot tell when the milk goes bad. This means many times the milk here can spoil. These machines won’t shut off when the milk goes bad.”
But the machine is costly and would take a large portion of his annual profit.
“Yearly if we avoid disease we can make profit round 300,000 to 500,000 shekels (or $80,000 to $133,000) a year but a computer would cost 100,000 shekels ($27,000),” Yaseen says.
The reason the computer system costs so much is that it is integrated into the machinery that milks the sheep. By reading the different levels of milk production and keeping track of each individual sheep the machine would save Yaseen a lot of tedious work and time spent buried in papers in his office.
On this particular day Yaseen was renting a tractor to distribute the sheep feed throughout the pens. Yaseen has his own tractor but it was getting repair work done.
But with continual expansion and uncertainty of sheep health each season Yaseen does not want to risk the money on additional machinery.
While technical support would help, Yaseeen does have extra help from the assistance of his sons on the farm.
“The land is for them. They work here and go to university, they work in the morning for two to three hours, then go to university,” he said.
Two of his boys are currently attending college, yet also spending countless hours herding, feeding, milking and even chasing down sheep that escape from their pens.
While Yaseen continues to make improvements on his sheep farm he is looking toward the future and excited for a new project that could make him the No. 1 farmer of another animal.
“Soon I want to start cow farming. I am still studying the project to make a big factory to milk for more money.”
