Camille and Dany: The dairy dream team

Camille Beauchemin and Dany Courchesne have only been working together at Ferme N.C.L. for a few months, but they were teammates long before that—on a dek hockey team. Now, they’re aiming for a new kind of goal: top herd performance.

Dany took up the farming lifestyle in 2017, after his father, Normand, decided to hang up his skates—or at least slow down. Today, Dany owns 50% of the company’s shares and is in charge of dairy, while his father tends to the fields.

Around the same time, Camille was getting started as an agri-advisor for Covris Coopérative. It wasn’t until winter 2024 that she took over from a colleague on Dany’s farm, Ferme N.C.L. “I was happy to join the team,” says Camille. “It’s fun working with Dany. He’s just as good on the farm as he is on the dek!”

Bringing their A game to robotic milking

Dany and Camille’s game plan is simple: make the most of the milking robot. “I do everything I can to optimize our robotic milking,” says the young farmer. He makes sure that each cow is able to give 110% come milking time.

When it comes to breeding, Dany selects his cows by milking speed (kg of fat produced per minute) and total fat production.

That’s turned out to be a smart play, with the farm boasting the second best performance for a milking robot of all Jolco Équipements customers (2022 rankings). “When we first invested in a milking robot in 2017, we were hoping to deliver an average of 80 kg of fat per day,” says Dany. “We’re already up to 94.7 kg!” Clearly, he’s on top of his game.

Teaming up for the win

“I help Dany think through how to run his business,” says Camille. When she visits the farm, the two huddle up and go over the data from the milking robot, calculate storage capacities, and talk breeding and calving.

“I’m there to answer his questions and make sure he has everything he needs,” she adds, clarifying that she doesn’t want to mess with a winning formula. “The farm’s in a very good position right now. As they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”

That’s exactly what Dany likes about the support he gets from Sollio Agriculture: Camille isn’t there to call the shots, but to give the assist. “The fact that it’s a cooperative means that the agri-advisors really are there for the farm,” he says. “Everyone is working together to help me achieve my goals, and I know that if they recommend something new, it means I actually need it.”

For Camille, the networking also makes a big difference. “We’re always holding little events for our farmers,” she says. “It brings us closer together.”

A great example is Covris Coopérative’s annual golf tournament. Dany attends as a golfer, while Camille helps run the event. “I prefer to stick to hockey,” she laughs. “And to helping farmers.”