D.M.D. Picard employees install a robotic milker.
Irena Vélez
Farmers Forum
FOURNIER— D.M.D. Picard Enterprises Inc., a dairy farming equipment and services provider, has expanded its business to cover all of Eastern Ontario, in addition to its existing Western Quebec presence.
The company was bought from J.H. Seguin & Sons, an Alfa Laval dealership, in 1980 by the three Picard brothers: Daniel, Marc, and Denis. The brothers ran the business until 2006. Jason Sauve and Martin Picard (Denis’ son) took over the company and currently have over 20 staff.
The company has been getting the word out about their expansion through Facebook and show sponsorship. They were at the Eastern Ontario Invitational in Spencerville and the Russell Fair junior show in August.
Sales rep. Chris McIntyre says the company has grown to meet the needs of the region. There has been a demand for robotics especially, their most popular area of business. Norwell Dairy also serves the area that extends as far west as Kingston.
In their robotics collection, D.M.D. Picard offers two models of the DeLaval VMS (voluntary milking system) series: VMS V300 and VMS V310. They also sell the Rovibec Agrisolutions Rover, a feeding robot which loads, mixes, and distributes food to animals without human intervention. The Agriration 4.0 control panel is also available for farm management of data, feeding, equipment and inventory.
“We feel that the DeLaval robot is a state-of-the-art technology for milking cows,” said McIntyre. “Guys have had to become more efficient because the cost of production has gone up accordingly and there’s not big margins in dairy farming anymore.”
Farm communication is another area of D.M.D.’s business. Their technicians service farm properties with internet, full network systems, and install cameras.
“There’s a fairly good demand for that from a security standpoint. It’s a set of eyes in the barn whenever you can’t be there, especially with cows calving. With your phone, you can just do a quick look and see what’s going on to know if you’ve got to be there,” McIntyre said.
Other products the company offers include milking clusters, milking parlours, milk cooling tanks, bale processors, swinging cow brushes for cow comfort, feed wagons for delivering forage, and generators. They also accept used farming equipment and resell it. Apart from dairy equipment, they install chicken barn ventilation systems.
The labour shortage issue in dairy operations has led many farmers to their business to help them find labour-saving solutions, McIntyre said. “Our focus is dairy and serving that industry with the highest available technology,” said McIntyre. “We will move into this area and offer top notch service and solutions to customers.”
