About the Turner Farm
The Turner's operate a dairy farm that is
located on Route 100 in Waitsfield, VT As you are driving into
the town of Waitsfield from the north, the Turner's Simplicity Farm
is on the left-hand side of the road. They are currently
milking about 40 cows twice a day.
The farm
was purchased by the Turner Family in 1932 for $3,200.
At the time, it was advertised as a 10 to 12 cow farm.
Since then the Turners have purchased additional land to
accommodate their growing herd. The land was conserved
a few years ago which means that it will remain farmland
forever and will not be developed.
All of the
cows on the farm are registered Holsteins. This
enables the Turners to improve the quality of the herd
through breeding and increases the value of the herd.
Doug Turner and son Joe
Marion Turner
(Doug's Mom) has been on the farm since the mid 1950's.
Soon to be
Certified Organic
The Turners have been
transitioning to an organic farm and are due to receive their
organic certification on May 18th. Conventional dairy farmers
get paid around $12 a hundred weight for their milk; organic farmers
receive over $30 per hundred weight for their milk. There is a
little over 12 gallons of milk per hundred weight. Clearly it
pays to become a certified organic dairy, but the transition process
is costly. The farmers must pay higher prices for feed while
receiving conventional milk prices.
For the
Turners, the transition process to organic farming has taken
about 3 years. It started with transitioning the
fields where they grow corn and hay to organic. Most
conventional dairy farmers use genetically modified corn
seed. Prior to the transition, Doug reports that they
used "Round-Up Ready" seed. Round-Up Ready seed
enables farmers to spray their fields with round-up to kill
weeds, but it will not kill the corn. Organic
certification requires that farmers not use any genetically
modified seed. In addition, farmers cannot use any
chemical fertilizers on their land.
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Did You Know?
The Soil Conservation Service estimates that
more than three billion tons of topsoil are
eroded from the United States croplands each
year. That means soil is eroding seven times
faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is
the foundation of the food chain in organic
farming. But in conventional farming the soil is
used more as a medium for holding plants in a
vertical position so they can be chemically
fertilized. As a result, American farms are
suffering from the worst soil erosion in
history.
It takes approximately 3,000 years for nature to
produce 6 inches of topsoil. Every 28 years, 1
inch of topsoil is lost as a result of current
farming practices. Organic biointensive farming
can produce 6 inches of topsoil in as little as
50 years-60 times faster than the rate in
nature. Source: Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener,
1999, in "Our food, our future," by Donella H.
Meadows, in Organic Gardening, September/October
2000. |
Organic =
Humane Treatment of the Animals
Conventional dairy farms do things like cut off the tails of
cows because it is more convenient, but certified organic
dairy farms are not allowed to do that. In addition,
most conventional dairy farms never let their milking cows
go outside because herding them back into the barn at
milking time can be a hassle. Organic dairy cows must
be out on pasture unless they are being milked except in the
winter when they could hurt themselves in the pastures.
In short, organic farming is much more than not using
chemical fertilizers or genetically modified seed.
Organic farming is about humane and respectful treatment of
the animals.
Getting
Close to Certification - Costs Go Up with Organic Feed
When the
Turner's first applied for Organic Certification several
years ago, the requirements were that the animals had to be
fed organic feed for three months prior to certification
(currently the new standard is 12 months of organic feed
making it much more difficult for farms to go organic).
The three month clock just started for the Turner's in
mid-February - about the same time as the roof collapse.
The Turners are purchasing 7.5 tons of organic grain about
every 13 days at a cost of $3,400 per delivery. In
this last three months of the transition process the
Turner's are spending about $18 per hundred weight of milk
that they sell and only getting conventional milk prices of
about $12 per hundred weight.
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Take a ride...
Start in Stowe and drive south on Route 100 to
Rochester and you will discover that the Turner
Farm is the only working dairy farm on that
stretch of the road (about 50 miles).
Fifty years ago there was dairy after dairy
along that same route. |
Healthier
Herd
Doug
reports that the herd has been getting more healthy as they
have been transitioning to organic and that trend will
continue. Part of the process is to rebuild the
animal's immune systems so that instead of managing illness
with antibiotics, the animals are more healthy and therefore
do not get sick as easily. According to Doug, it will
take about three years for the immune systems to completely
rebuild, but they should begin to notice their cows are more
resistant to disease even in the coming months.
Dairy
Farms in the Mad River Valley
There are
currently five dairy farms in the Mad River Valley
-
The
Carpenter Farm
-
The
Defreest Dairy Farm
-
The
Neill Farm
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The
Turner Farm
-
The Von
Trapp Farm
The Von
Trapp Farm will receive their organic certification on March
1 of this year! They will be the first certified
organic dairy in the Mad River Valley.
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