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Milking a trend for farm fresh Cornwall dairies cut ties with

industry, sell local

Sunday, October 3, 2004

By Brigitte Ruthman

Copyright © 2004 Republican-American

" Raw milk for sale. "

The men, both experienced as dairymen on larger farms, formed a

partnership under the name Stone Wall Dairy over the summer. On the

first weekend day they were open last month for sales, they sold

about 15 of the 24 gallons of milk they collected. That was before

the white banner, and before word began to spread about their new

venture.

In this quintessential New England town founded by hardscrabble

farmers who carved pastures from rocky hillsides, Stone Wall Dairy is

the latest evidence of a reversal in Connecticut's ailing dairy

industry. It's a hint that perhaps a tide that has for so long ebbed

against profitable, small-scale farming is turning.

At least that's the hope around Cornwall, where First Selectman

Gordon Ridgeway is optimistic and boasting of his town's new-age

dairy farmers. Three of Cornwall's four dairy farmers are now

licensed to sell milk by the bottle, within earshot of the cows that

produce it. There are just 15 others with the same credentials

statewide.

" It's the retail milk capital of the state, " said Ridgeway, a

vegetable farmer who understands the razor-thin profit margin most

farmers scrape by on. " It's part of a national trend, about how

people are hungry for a local product. "

While consumers haven't lined up outside the barn to buy milk the way

they do fresh corn and other produce, the Cornwall farmers who have

never before needed to market what they sell believe the raw milk

will sell itself to educated consumers. Milk plucked from a

supermarket dairy case just doesn't compare, they say, to the creamy,

butterfat-rich taste of milk from grass-fed cows.

Cornwall, population 1,400, may have a nearby supply of wealthy

clientele to support three farms selling raw milk, said Department of

Agriculture inspection official Wayne Kasacek. The new businesses

also fit the history and flavor of a town which has retained the

visual appeal of a rural farming community even though most of the

farmers have sold out, he noted.

Ridgway likes to think of the town as brimming with entrepreneurial

spirit, with an interest in producing a quality product and

eliminating profit-sucking middlemen.

Across town from Widing and Gladding, farmer Debra Tyler was the

first do-it-yourself farmer to downsize and branch off from the

supply and processing channels of agriculture a decade ago. She

launched Local Farm in the hand-hewn Chamberlain Barn overlooking the

Coltsfoot Valley. She has just a handful of Jerseys she whispers to

by name from a pasture along Route 4. Tyler said she can't produce

enough Local Farm milk to meet demand during much of the year.

" Ten years ago, I would go into a health food store and offer raw

milk and they would be laugh me out of the store, " she said.

Tyler said she knows milking five cows is all she can handle, despite

the lure of additional income. Instead of increasing her milking

herd, she is now producing " family milk cows, " ready at sale to

replace backyard lawn mowers and provide fresh milk. Tyler's herd of

15 includes several calves trained to munch grass on a tether. She

offers workshops in hand milking and even offers to board them when

their owners go on vacation.

On Hautboy Hill Road, longtime dairyman Buddy Hurlburt last month

began selling milk from a roadside stand. Until February, Hurlburt,

his wife Irene and their six children tended a herd of 90 cows.

Profits slid as processors and supermarkets took their cut from their

milk. They did the math. Six cows can produce 50 pounds of milk a

day, or about 35 gallons. Sold for $3 a half gallon direct to the

consumer in glass bottles, the milk could be worth a gross profit of

more than $76,000 annually.

That was the theory when Hurlburt canceled his agreement with Agri-

Mark, a milk processor, converted his milk house to a processing

plant, and began selling milk which is pasteurized but not

homogenized. Now he's got regulars buying all the milk he has, sold

on its rich, creamy taste.

" I get about 18 gallons a day and I'm running out, " Hurlburt said. " I

bought four more cows last Sunday. There is a big enough market for

all of us here. "

Wilding and Gladding sell their milk in plastic bottles for $3 a half

gallon and are confident they can sell whatever their cows produce.

When the lights flick on in their barn at 6 a.m., it's as if the

clock has turned back. Once, Gladding spent three hours milking 85

cows three times a day. Milking his eight cows now takes him just 20

to 30 minutes. Six of the cows -- several of which are named after

members of the UConn women's basketball team -- are currently

producing a total of about 24 gallons a day. The other two are dry.

For Gladding, a native of Rochester, N.Y., and former longtime

vocational agriculture teacher at Wamogo Regional High School in

Litchfield, farming is a return to his family's roots. " I taught

until 1980 and couldn't wait for weekends to be outside, " said

Gladding, who lives in the picture-perfect white farmhouse a stone's

throw from the barn.

But it is a different kind of farming. Like Hurlburt and Tyler before

them, Gladding and Widing waded through a tedious application process

to prove they can meet stringent cleanliness requirements necessary

to sell raw milk. They also struggled to find the Jersey cows favored

for their high butterfat. A spike in milk prices over the summer made

it difficult to find farmers willing to part with good producers.

They also didn't spend much on advertising or market research,

factors which previously were handled by the milk processors.

Kasacek said the farmers will need to do more than rely on their

product. " It's still a slow-growing niche market, " he said. " It will

take an investment of time and money to develop markets that aren't

there yet on the scale they need to be for these farmers to run

viable businesses. "

Widing, a resident of Warren, believes it's just a matter of time

before the public demands farm-fresh milk. He was sure 15 years ago

when his son returned from a trip to New Zealand and Australia.

There, farmers have long believed grass-fed cows are healthier and

produce better milk, and that processing and homogenization saps

vitamins and breaks down fat particles more easily picked up as

cholesterol by the human body, he said.

" He said we've been doing things wrong for 40 years, " Widing said.

Milk drinkers interested in trying a swig can buy raw milk at the

farm or from the glass-front refrigerator at Baird's Store in

Cornwall Bridge.

[Guest guest]

Bless you for finding this. You've made my year.

This is how it ought to be in a free America. And if they're doing it, we all can do it too.

--Terry

Connecticut article

http://www.rep-am.com/story.phpMilking a trend for farm fresh Cornwall dairies cut ties with industry, sell localSunday, October 3, 2004 By Brigitte Ruthman Copyright © 2004 Republican-American "Raw milk for sale." The men, both experienced as dairymen on larger farms, formed a partnership under the name Stone Wall Dairy over the summer. On the first weekend day they were open last month for sales, they sold about 15 of the 24 gallons of milk they collected. That was before the white banner, and before word began to spread about their new venture. In this quintessential New England town founded by hardscrabble farmers who carved pastures from rocky hillsides, Stone Wall Dairy is the latest evidence of a reversal in Connecticut's ailing dairy industry. It's a hint that perhaps a tide that has for so long ebbed against profitable, small-scale farming is turning. ....

[Guest guest]

Yes, Yes, Yes!!! It's wonderful to hear about that. There is hope for this insane world out of control, afterall. I hope.

~Tonio

Bless you for finding this. You've made my year.

This is how it ought to be in a free America. And if they're doing it, we all can do it too.

--Terry

Connecticut article

http://www.rep-am.com/story.phpMilking a trend for farm fresh Cornwall dairies cut ties with industry, sell localSunday, October 3, 2004 By Brigitte Ruthman Copyright © 2004 Republican-American "Raw milk for sale."

[Guest guest]

Yes, Yes, Yes!!! It's wonderful to hear about that. There is hope for this insane world out of control, afterall. I hope.

~Tonio

Bless you for finding this. You've made my year.

This is how it ought to be in a free America. And if they're doing it, we all can do it too.

--Terry

Connecticut article

http://www.rep-am.com/story.phpMilking a trend for farm fresh Cornwall dairies cut ties with industry, sell localSunday, October 3, 2004 By Brigitte Ruthman Copyright © 2004 Republican-American "Raw milk for sale."