Bringing a new generation into dairy

MacKenzie Wallace finds a place on 156-year-old grazing farm

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Whitingham, Vermont — MacKenzie Wallace knew he wanted to make a career in the grazing dairy world. He also knew it would be a challenge since there was no family farm to work into.

A few turns in the road later, this young Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) graduate is working with seasoned dairy grazier Leon Corse in south-central Vermont (Graze April 2020) where he completed his apprenticeship in 2021.

When MacKenzie first came back as hired labor earlier this year, he started taking on more management decisions. He is now being transitioned into the operation more fully.

They’re both optimistic about the future.

Getting into dairy

MacKenzie didn’t grow up on a farm, but he gravitated toward agriculture nonetheless.

August 6, 2024August 6, 2024

Finding opportunities in obstacles

From low milk prices to 100% raw sales with the CSA model

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Alfred Station, New York — After four decades of dairying, hauling costs and low milk prices made shipping grassfed organic milk unsustainable for the Snyders. Sometimes the milk check hardly covered the electric bill.

For Kelby and Kristina and Kelby’s father Jerry, there were two choices: stop dairying or massively scale raw milk sales.

The odds looked stacked against the raw milk option. The farm isn’t in a densely populated or wealthy area, New York regulations only permit on-farm sales, and current raw milk customers were relatively few. It was going to take some serious creativity to make a go of it.

In the face of the unknowns, the family took a leap of faith and gave notice to their milk buyer in November 2022. The milk truck came for the last time on April 29, 2023.

CSAs were the ticket

Existing raw milk sales were consistently 30-50 gallons a week. The 45-cow herd milked once a day was producing about 500 gallons weekly, so the Snyders needed to make ten times the current sales. A tall order, but they believed the demand would be there and therefore didn’t scale down the cow herd.

May 1, 2020July 26, 2020

Weak links

Food system’s weaknesses show need for something better

By Allen Williams
The Covid-19 pandemic has created significant upheaval across the world, and certainly right here in the U.S.

With the shelter-in-place orders, restaurants closing to inside dining, and schools and universities shutting down in-person education, the impact on agriculture and the food industries has been monumental.

February 1, 2019April 18, 2020

Price alone won’t solve our problems

By Joel McNair

Many dairy farmers believe that low milk prices are the biggest danger to their livelihoods. For more than a few, the thought is that the best solution would be a Canadian-style supply management program to boost milk prices and keep them at profitable levels.

I don’t buy all of the arguments for quotas and such, and there is no reason to believe that our elected representatives will ever enact anything approaching Canada’s system. Continue reading “Price alone won’t solve our problems”

April 1, 2016April 18, 2020

Drawing the line using peasant wisdom

By Jim Van Der Pol

Kerkhoven, Minnesota — We had been talking about the new dairy factories here in western Minnesota, my friend and I. We finished adding the 4,000 cows in the first one to the 10,000 in the next one, then the 10,000 cows in the just-completed one as well as the 10,000 in the just-proposed one. That is 34,000 cows, all within 12 miles of my house.

I told my friend that the dairy factories imported young men from South America to do the work and constructed bunkhouses at the site so they wouldn’t be bothersome in the town and create a public relations problem. Then, speaking from the experience of a lifetime in dairy farming, came his question: Continue reading “Drawing the line using peasant wisdom”

January 1, 2014April 18, 2020

Feed the world? It’s up to us peasants

By Joel McNair

I’ve a dairy grazing friend who has long thought of himself as being nothing more than a peasant. A rather interesting view, I’ve thought, given that this man has made a fair amount of money operating at a scales far beyond those of the traditional midwestern dairy farmer. His house is nicer than mine.

A peasant he probably is, though, if one considers the size and clout held by agriculture’s true power brokers. ConAgra, Cargill, Monsanto, Smithfield/Shuanghui — an individual farmer cannot stand up to the likes of these behemoths no matter how many acres he might till or cows he can milk. One need look only at the history of our agricultural policy: What was once concerned primarily with keeping individuals on the land has morphed into something that is almost entirely about keeping food flows and processing/marketing profits on the upswing. Continue reading “Feed the world? It’s up to us peasants”