Third-Generation Dairy Farm Started by the Greatest Generation

After World War II, when a war-ravaged economy and a severe housing shortage caused a third of the Dutch population to seriously consider emigration, a wave of 80,000 immigrants came to the United States.

Adam and Pietje Van Exel from Holland were two of them.

In 1954, the couple purchased a farm in Lodi, California, that they started with just 30 cows. Six decades later, the operation has several dairy farm locations, 3,000 cows, 3,500 acres of crops and a team of 40 people that includes three generations of Van Exel family members.

“My parents milked the cows by hand,” says Hank Van Exel, the son of Adam and Pietje. “They did all the work themselves. I think they were one of the greatest generations ever.”

Hank credits his father for the farm’s early adoption of many progressive dairy management practices — including self-locking stanchions, artificial breeding and balancing feed rations by group.