A visit with former New Hamburg and Tavistock dairy farmers Don and Joanne Russel

Don and Joanne Russel with their Ontario and Canadian Outstanding Young Farmer awards, earned in 2006. Gary West photo

By Gary West

There are many longtime farm families in the New Hamburg and Tavistock area who will remember Don and Joanne Russel, a couple whose determination and innovative thinking helped them build a dairy operation against the odds.

Their story starts close to home, but today, the Russels are well-known in Renfrew County, northwest of Ottawa, where they have spent more than two decades milking cows and developing what may be one of the most forward-thinking barn designs in modern dairying.

Their journey in agriculture began on Feb. 28, 1995, in a rented tie-stall barn near Punkey Doodles Corners. Don and Joanne Russel were young, ambitious and determined to enter the quota system at a time when many believed it was nearly impossible to get started. After submitting 26 cash-flow plans to six major lenders, it was Farm Credit Canada that finally agreed to loan them enough money to buy 20 kilograms of quota.

Don Russel laughs when he remembers how it happened.

“I found a loophole in their policy and showed it to our MP. Three days later, we had the money. FCC closed that loophole after that.”

To scrape by in the early years, they bought dry cows – many three-quartered – calved them out, sold the calves, milked the cows for a lactation and then shipped them for beef. Their advisor visited weekly at the beginning, convinced they wouldn’t last four months.

“Thirty years later, we’re still milking cows,” Don Russel said with a grin.

After outgrowing their first rented barn, they moved to Walter and Valerie Kropf’s farm west of Tavistock. By 1998, they had saved enough for a down payment on a farm of their own – more than four hours northeast in Renfrew County where land prices were more manageable. Alongside milking cows, Don Russel balanced dairy rations for Master Feeds and took up hoof trimming after travelling to Wisconsin for training. At the time, his hydraulic tilt table was the first of its kind in Eastern Ontario.

Those experiences sparked an idea; cows deserved better comfort than what he saw in typical free-stall barns. By 2000, he began researching an entirely different barn concept. After “many tries and lots of mistakes,” the breakthrough came on Nov. 30, 2013, when he finalized the design for what he calls the Pasture Barn – a system he stresses is not a pack barn, but something entirely its own.

In 2006, their perseverance earned them recognition as Ontario’s Outstanding Young Farmers, followed by the national award later that year. The encouragement they received pushed Don Russel to continue refining the pasture barn idea. In 2019, their new barn – with year-round comfort that mimics pasture conditions – became a reality. Since then, their Holstein herd has achieved top-tier milk quality, high per-cow value and exceptional longevity scores.

Today, their barn design holds patents in Canada, the U.S. and 54 European countries, and is drawing attention from farmers and animal-welfare advocates in Ireland and Wales.

Now in their late 50s, Don and Joanne Russel are preparing for the next chapter. Their beautifully renovated home, 300 acres and innovative barn are on the market. Their daughters have started careers of their own and Don Russel is eager to devote more time to promoting pasture barn designs around the world.

“A day without learning isn’t very productive,” he says.

More information is available at pasturebarndesigns.com.