What happens to the dairy farms that stop milking and sell off their cows? That’s an important question in Vermont, where the number of dairy farms continues to plummet and interest in saving the working agricultural landscape is intense. Seven Days spoke with the owners of seven new enterprises situated on former dairy farms. Here’s what they said about the transition.
— R.H.
Champlain Valley Hops
Starksboro
Owners: Julian Post and Peter Briggs
Operated as a dairy
Until 2018. The farm was already a dairy when Mitch Kelly bought it in the early 1970s, and he was still milking cows when he agreed to sell it to a pair of business partners, Julian Post and Peter Briggs.
New operation
Thirty-seven of the farm’s 240 acres are planted with hops, making it New England’s largest grower. Its crop is sold to craft breweries nationwide; during the fall harvest, the fresh hops are particularly popular among Vermont’s brewers.
Julian Post: Hops are super-niche, so I wouldn’t pitch them as a huge replacement for dairy. But for people who are into the unique aspects of hops farming — a perennial crop, used in beer, somewhat intensive production, a lot of attention to detail — it’s a really interesting crop to grow.
— J.B.
Baird Farm
North Chittenden
Owners: Bonnie and Bob Baird; their daughter Jenna Baird; and her partner, Jacob Powsner
Operated as a dairy
1918 until 1996. Bob Baird’s grandmother sold butter door-to-door in Rutland in the 1920s. Bob and his wife, Bonnie, bought the 560-acre farm from Bob’s father in 1979 and had roughly 60 milkers.
New operation
Maple has always been part of the farm. When the Bairds stopped milking in 1996, they hooked the dairy’s vacuum pump up to their sugar maples. Since their daughter Jenna and her partner, Jacob, moved home and took over the farm’s expanding maple retail business in 2015, the operation has grown to 14,000 taps. Thousands of customers stop by the sugarhouse each year to buy jugs of organic syrup, take tours and attend events.
Bonnie Baird: Dairying is hard. We loved it, but we didn’t have time for our kids. That made us sell the whole herd. Twice.
Bob Baird: We’d done well enough, so we could afford to stop and keep the farm. Milk prices were pretty good in the ’80s and ’90s, and we wanted to do other things before we got too old.
Jenna Baird: When we came back, we thought we really, really, really had to have something other than maple. But we’ve been able to grow this so much, and we’re good at creating experiences for people.
— J.B.
Foster Farm Botanicals
East Calais
Owners: Annie Christopher and Peter Backman
Operated as a dairy
For 188 years, starting in 1823. Generations of Peter Backman’s family ran the farm until 1971, then rented the land to different dairy farmers until 2011.
New operation
In 2014, Backman and his wife, Annie Christopher, transitioned the 40-acre farm to an herb operation. Thanks to its past as a dairy, the soil is especially fertile and nutrient-dense, making it ideal for organic agriculture. With the help of farm manager Ben Uris, Foster Farm Botanicals sells more than 30 types of herbs, including California poppy, ashwagandha and yarrow.
Ben Uris: It’s definitely a unique model to be growing herbs. It’s capital-intensive to get into. Actually, it’s similar to growing hay, but there’s a lot more details and a lot more species, and we’re dealing with different growth cycles. But it’s a well-suited type of farming to this land and to our clients. In fact, it seems like there might be a niche here for people to grow really high-quality herbs.
— R.H
Four Town Lowlines
Danville
Owner: Jake Boudreau
Operated as a dairy
Jake Boudreau grew up on what was then a fifth-generation dairy farm, waking up well before school each day to help his grandfather milk cows. When his grandparents made the difficult decision to sell their dairy herd in 2015, he was heartbroken.
New operation
Boudreau read about the potential of Australian Lowline Angus — a breed known for its efficiency — in Hobby Farms magazine and decided to pivot to a different type of cattle operation: raising beef. In 2015, he purchased his first Lowline Angus from a farm in Connecticut. Now Boudreau has more than 100 steers on 850 acres.
Jake Boudreau: I’m kind of crazy, but I still sometimes miss getting up at 3:30 in the morning to milk the cows. But with this operation, I can have a much more direct relationship with my [customers] than before, when a truck would come to pick up our milk. I didn’t want to lose the way of life my family has been a part of for five generations. I’m proud to be able to use the land in this way.
— R.H.
Joneslan Farm
Hyde Park
Owners: Brian and Steve Jones
Operated as a (cow) dairy
From 1872 until 2020. Brothers Brian and Steve Jones took over the dairy’s operation in 1993 and bought the 600-acre farm from their parents in 2004. They sold their 300 cows in April 2020.
New operation
Goat dairy. The Joneses started shipping goat milk exclusively to Vermont Creamery in February 2021. They currently milk 750 goats and hope to top 1,000 by fall.
Brian Jones: The goats are a lot more personable, a lot more curious. We got tired of the [cow] dairy business — that insecurity of not knowing what your milk price is month-to-month, basically. We wanted to be a little higher than where we are now, as far as the number of goats we’re milking. Production has been lower than we originally planned, too. But it’s getting there. Anything we make, the creamery is gonna take. They’re begging for more and more milk all the time.
— J.B.
Northeast Kingdom Hemp
Barton
Owners: Karen and Cam Devereux and their son Camden
Operated as a dairy
In the 1970s, Cam Devereux’s family bought a herd of cows and became dairy farmers. Quickly, though, they realized the business was untenable; in the late 1980s, they sold the herd. Cam’s father went back to working in construction. The family held on to some of the land.
New operation
In 2017, the next generation of the Devereux family decided to take a chance on hemp. They purchased a CBD extractor and planted their first crop. Last year, they obtained state licenses allowing them to cultivate, manufacture and retail THC products. They sell them at their retail store, Kingdom Kind, in Barton.
Cam Devereux: We need to be making artisan-quality craft products with our small fields. Sure, there’s a lot of headaches and a lot of permits involved with this type of operation. But the state is trying superhard — they’re making the rules as they go.
— R.H.
Vermont Mealworm Farm
Braintree
Owner: Bob Simpson
Operated as a dairy
From the 1800s until 2013. Bob Simpson’s parents bought the farm in 1950. Simpson purchased it from them in 1972, milking up to 400 cows. In April, Simpson sold most of the 519-acre farm to an out-of-state buyer. He is working on a deal with the buyer to remain on the farm.
New operation
Raising mealworms — roughly 4 million of them — in the barn’s lower milking parlor. The biz ships live mealworms around the country, mostly as chicken feed, and sells frass — the mealworms’ waste — to hemp farmers and home gardeners as fertilizer. Simpson recently supplied mealworms to the University of Vermont, where a research project aimed to use the sustainable protein in a product that could be distributed to dining halls.
Bob Simpson: I’ve been trying to get rid of the farm [for a long time]. We were in bankruptcy since way back when [Tropical Storm] Irene hit [in 2011], and we were short of feed. We started with mealworms six years ago because there wasn’t really anybody in New England raising them. We’ve got more mealworms than there are people in Vermont — a lot more. More than cows, too.
— J.B.
These interviews were edited and condensed for clarity and length.
The original print version of this article was headlined “After Dairy | New agricultural enterprises are flourishing where cows once grazed”
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This article appears in The Dairy Issue.
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