I had the pleasure this morning of conducting the first interview with the new Chairman of the Beef Board. She’s dairy producer, Lucinda Williams. The Board releases some background information on Linda which I’m sharing with you here.
Lucinda’s roots to the beef industry date back to life growing up as the daughter of a Colorado cowboy and rancher. Lucinda’s father raised cattle in Holly, Colo., and also grew sugar beets. Early in her parents’ marriage, they made the choice to put farming on hold for a while and go back to school. Her father got involved with the Extension Service and never did make it back to the land full time. Instead, he became a professor and worked for the extension service. They lived in Virginia until Lucinda was a teen, at which time they moved to Massachusetts and their current home of Hatfield. “Even though we didn’t live on a farm, we still had a 5-acre garden,” jokes Lucinda.
After moving to Massachusetts, the first family to invite them to dinner was the Williams family who had a dairy farm in town. That’s how she met Darryl and 25 years of marriage later, she would pick him again. At the time, she thought that she was marrying a teacher but soon after their engagement, Darryl realized teaching just wasn’t for him – agriculture was in his blood – he had to give back to the land.
So Lucinda was the one to return to the farm. Darryl is the 12th generation on their land, which came down through his mother’s family. Over the years, the land has been used for a sheep operation, onions, tobacco and cucumbers. It was Darryl’s father who married into the family and introduced dairy.
“Dairy farming is hard. You don’t go into it for the time off or the money, you do it because you love the animals and the lifestyle,” says Lucinda. “There was never any pressure from family for us to take over the farm. It came down to our love for farming and that outweighed all else. It’s still quite evident it’s a family trait: Darryl’s dad still helps with chores and plants corn, while his mom still does the daily feeding of calves in the morning.”
Lucinda and Darryl milk 100 cows with a total of 200 animals with replacements. They crop 250 acres (own 180, rent the rest), raising corn, alfalfa and hay. In her part of the country, farmland is small and spread out with their biggest field sizing in at just 22 acres.
“The reality is, even though we live in a quiet, rural town,” continues Lucinda, “we farm on a residential street.”
You can listen to my interview with Lucinda here: [audio:http://zimmcomm.biz/cbb/cic-09-williams-chairman.mp3]
Feel free to check out my Cattle Industry Convention photos here: Cattle Industry Convention Photo Album