For a dairy farmer, Jim Maille is a late riser. He wakes at 6 a.m. and often grabs a sandwich for breakfast before heading to the barn. “Two slices of bread, some mayo, bologna, and you’re out the door,” he said.
Jim, 62, lives with his wife, Sylvia, and their 25-year-old son, Ben, in a modest white house on Dorset Street in Shelburne across from the barn where the family milks 50 Holsteins twice a day. Ben is the fourth generation to farm at Maille’s Dairy, which celebrated its century anniversary in 2019.
In January, when the Guillemettes over on Pond Road sold their milking herd, the Mailles’ 180-acre farm became the last family-owned cow dairy in Shelburne.
Most mornings during the grazing season, the cows cross Dorset Street, a busy commuter corridor, to reach the farm’s western pastures after they are milked. “We can’t be an early farm,” Ben said. “We have to wait ’til the morning traffic goes by.”
In suburban Chittenden County, where many streets of cookie-cutter houses are named for long-gone farms, the sight of cows crossing the road is a novelty. Drivers often get out of their cars to snap a photo, Ben recounted.
The farm’s address, just a few miles outside Burlington, could also make it tempting to sell when milk prices dip and expenses soar. Some of the Mailles’ acreage is conserved — meaning it cannot be developed — but the remaining land’s real estate potential has trumped its agricultural value for decades.
When Jim was growing up there, “Every neighbor had a farm,” he said. “We were all pretty good at helping each other.” These days, he continued, “We have to be more independent.”
In 2004, after the next dairy north on Dorset Street, Sutton Farm, stopped milking, the Mailles acquired 66 conserved acres of that farm in exchange for giving up the right to sell some of their farmland for development, thereby conserving that portion, too. They hay roughly another 100 acres belonging to neighbors up and down Dorset Street. Recently, two adjoining parcels sold to a developer. “We had that field for 30, 35 years,” Jim said. “Slowly, we’re losing land.”
Bread & Butter Farm, which shares about 2,000 feet of fence line with Maille’s Dairy, is doing its part to stem the development tide.
Starting in 2009 with 143 conserved acres of the former Leduc dairy that straddled Shelburne and South Burlington, Bread & Butter farmer-owner Corie Pierce and her team have built a diversified meat and vegetable operation with education offerings, an on-site farmstand and café, and community events. In 2018, Bread & Butter took over management of another 375 acres of the former Auclair dairy farm off Cheesefactory and Hinesburg roads that are in the process of being conserved through the Vermont Land Trust.
Initially, the two farms appear to have little in common except for a boundary. The Mailles represent an endangered, historic breed: small dairy farms that go quietly about their business of shipping milk. Bread & Butter Farm has become a beloved local destination, a high-profile example of a new approach to agriculture that might fill the vacuum left by the loss of dairy.
During Bread & Butter Farm’s popular summer burger nights, “We can hear the music from here and smell the burgers,” Ben said. His father admitted that he doesn’t quite understand all the things going on over the fence but, Jim added, “It’s neat that they’re trying to find a way to keep the land going.”
It’d be easy to say one farm represents Vermont’s agricultural past and the other its future, but that would be too simplistic. Both are looking forward and working “to keep the land going,” as Jim put it, against formidable challenges.
Chief among those, particularly in Chittenden County, is intense development pressure. No one debates that Vermont needs more housing, but many, like Tracy Zschau, interim president of the Vermont Land Trust, believe that it’s also important to protect farmland in more densely populated areas to prevent sprawl, mitigate the effects of climate change, provide farmers proximity to markets and ensure food access.
“Someday we may not be able to import food from California, because it’s burned down or flooded over. Same with Florida,” said Sarah Dopp, founder and president of the South Burlington Land Trust. “If we’ve paved over all the agricultural land, we’ll be in deep trouble.” Done right, farming preserves wildlife habitat and protects waterways by reducing runoff, Dopp added.
Chatting in the milk room of their 1939-era barn, the Mailles said they understand the benefits of well-managed soil to the Lake Champlain watershed. Jim noted that recent persistent rain had delayed putting the herd out on pasture: “On this clay [soil], they can ruin a paddock in hours.”
“My grandfather always said there was a right time to be on this land,” he said.
The Mailles are intrigued by no-till practices that can help preserve soil structure and increase the ground’s ability to absorb water. “I’d like to embrace new technology, but just the cost of the technology…” Ben trailed off with a shrug. “Everything we farm with is 50 years old.”
Of the Mailles’ three kids, Ben is the only one who wanted to be a farmer. “I dropped him too many times,” his dad joked before turning serious. “I tell him, ‘Don’t farm because of me. Farm because it makes you happy.'”
Father and son handle chores, though a couple of University of Vermont animal science students help during weekday afternoon milking. That doesn’t cut milking time significantly, but when Jim gets home for supper at 8 p.m., “I’m not half as tired,” he said.
The pair plans to keep farming “as long as we can financially do it,” Ben said. “As long as I can physically do it,” his dad added.
Last year when milk prices were better for a change, Jim was able to prepurchase his seed corn. He hopes that will soften the impact of low milk checks projected for this summer.
It helps that the Mailles don’t have a mortgage payment. “Our accountant says that’s big,” Jim said, sitting for a rare moment on the edge of a calf pen and scratching the head of a new arrival. Jim knows that neighboring Bread & Butter Farm is saddled with a large mortgage. “We feel for her,” he said of Pierce.
“They’re a 100-year dairy. They’re still here. They’re still doing it, and they’re passing it down.” Brandon Bless
The Mailles do everything they can to keep expenses down. That has included salvaging equipment from the old dairy barn at Bread & Butter. The farm’s land and animal manager, Brandon Bless, said he’s happy to see it go to good use and has, in turn, occasionally borrowed tools. “A neighboring development wouldn’t have had a disc harrow to borrow,” he observed.
Last fall, Bless, 40, approached the Mailles about jointly applying for a state grant for a pricey piece of equipment he hoped to use to rehabilitate dairy cornfields into pasture for Bread & Butter’s herd of about 70 Devon beef cows. Bless knew the application would be stronger if it came from two farms, and the Mailles agreed it could help them address soil compaction in some of their fields.
Recently, Bless recounted, he stopped by to let Jim and Ben know they’d received the grant. The trio chatted for a bit about the new equipment, an invasive pasture weed plaguing both farms and when the spring deluge would finally let up. They were all anxious to get their cows on grass.
On May 9, Bread & Butter’s herd finally headed out to pasture. Pierce, 49, was teaching that morning and planned to bring her students to observe. The kids scrambled excitedly into the back of a pickup truck for the short ride to the farm’s newer parcel of land toward Hinesburg Road.
Pierce fervently believes in regenerative land management as a solution to the climate crisis. “It’s the healthiest thing we can do for the land and for the humans who are part of that ecosystem,” she said.
Bread & Butter has invested heavily in restoring its former dairy acreage. Years of haying and corn cultivation with heavy machinery take a toll, Pierce explained: “Grazing animals — if you are managing them in a certain way — they can undo all that.”
In the pasture, Pierce prompted the youngsters to recall what they had learned about how cows can help build soil. “They’re going to poop,” one said. “And pee!” another added gleefully.
To the north beyond the feasting cattle, Pierce pointed out bright-green house wrap on a home under construction. She is painfully aware of the dearth of local housing. Last year, Bread & Butter employed 35 people, about 12 full time. Pierce identified their struggle to find affordable homes as the single biggest threat to the farm’s viability. While some of her customers might be able to buy into the new development, prices far exceed a farmer’s budget.
Pierce hopes a new model for the purchase and conservation of the former Auclair acres can help. She is working with the Vermont Land Trust to establish a collaborative nonprofit to hold the land and carve out a few acres upon which to build farmer housing.
The first-generation farmer believes collaboration is critical to address the challenges faced by those, like herself, who have the drive to take on large dairy tracts but limited financial resources. The relationships may look different than the support Jim Maille recalled among neighboring dairy farms, but the goal remains the same.
Like Maille’s Dairy, Bread & Butter aims to build “something that outlives us for many generations to come,” Bless said. It is reassuring, he said, to look west and see a farm with such longevity.
“In a lot of ways, they are a model for us,” Bless continued. “They’re a 100-year dairy. They’re still here. They’re still doing it, and they’re passing it down.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Last Farms Standing | In Chittenden County, a century-old dairy and a high-profile diversified farm hold out against suburban development”
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This article appears in The Dairy Issue.
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