Eco-logical farming - This is part three of a four part series on reconnecting and conserving local food and local people.

Before moving to our present site in the fall of 1999, we spent 3 years raising vegetables, horses and calves on land belonging to Donella Meadows just across the river in New Hampshire. At that time we were certified organic by the New Hampshire Department of Agriculture. When we moved west to establish our current operation in Hartland, Vt., the USDA was engaged in the process of creating national organic standards, and like many small organic producers we questioned whether the new industrial-sized regulations were relevant to us anymore. We were glad to see corporate farms moving away from chemical farming to cash in on this expanding market, but we wondered what would become of the locally based grass-roots movement that had been doing the right thing all along?

Since we sell directly to most of our customers, we did not feel we needed to be certified. Our farm is open to all visitors and their questions about our farming practices.

In addition, once we started milking cows, we found ourselves at odds with regulations that seemed more concerned with consumer-driven fears about food safety than about assuring the highest quality care for our cattle. It seems that legitimate concerns about the routine feeding of antibiotics to feedlot beef cattle has been misconstrued in the public mind to mean that dairy cattle are treated in the same way, which is untrue. We believe whole heartedly in preventive medicine, good nutrition and a healthy environment for our cows, but we would no more deny them a necessary treatment of antibiotics than we would to a horse or a sick child. The corporate organic farms can always shift a sick cow over to their conventionally managed operations to be treated for mastitis, but for a micro-herd like ours that is not an option. We feel animal health and welfare to be foremost in our farm management plan.

Our methods emphasize the building up of healthy soils as the basis of sustainable agriculture. Composted manures from our horses and dairy cows along with cover crops feed the land. We do not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Our Fjord horses provide the power for the market garden. All our farm products are sold within 12 miles of the farm.


Jennifer Dickert

JERSEY COWS
Our Jersey cows graze the hill pastures and produce milk for our raw milk customers (the state of Vermont allows us to sell 12 gallons a day at the farm) and fluid milk for our business partners, Cobb Hill Cheese, who make alpine style and Caerphilly, a welsh cheddar. Both cheeses are made and on site. Our surplus milk is picked up by Agri-Mark Coop for the Grafton Cheese Plant, a most jersey cow milk cheddar maker. The cow manure is turned into compost to feed the soils of the farm. All our cows are registered and we use sexed semen for most of our cows and heifers. This has given us a boost in the number of heifers we have for Vermont’s semi-annual breeding stock sale. We have had animals go California, Maine, Texas, Kentucky, New Mexico and New Hampshire. A bred heifer sells for $2500 to $3500. These fawn colored Jerseys are the smallest of the Dairy breeds and make the richest milk. Jerseys come from the Channel Isles off the coast of England. They have been a long-time favorite of Vermont farmers and have held their ground here even through the modern domination of the Holstein. Our herd thrives on pastures, organic grains, and hay produced here on this farm and by our neighbors. The herd has a nutritionist, who balances the ration after testing all our forage. They average 16,000-19,000 lbs of milk each annually. Our star cow makes 25,000 lb per lactation. Pretty impressive, mama!

Jennifer Dickert