I was surprised to read this story about a community trying to save a small dairy farm that operated on a nonprofit environmental educational center in Connecticut. New Pond Farm has sold milk and yogurt and cheese made on site from its small herd of 22 cows. Recently the board of directors decided to sell most of the herd and a group of concerned members voiced their opposition.
Jeanine Herman, a farm association member has led the drive to save the dairy herd. Wednesday, at the farm’s board of directors meeting, she will present a petition signed by 200 Redding, Conn. residents requesting that the animals be kept.
“We know their endowment took a hit with the economic downturn on the stock market,” Herman said Monday. “But we wonder if everything has been done to try to save the herd. This is one of the last dairy farms in the state. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Herman wants the board to sit down with New Pond members and clarify why they want to sell all but eight of the cows.
“I purchase six gallons of milk there a week for my family, and we’re not alone,” Herman said. “We wonder, is it that the dairy operation is not breaking even? Is it that they lost money from the endowment? Is it that they need more room for hay if they keep the herd as is? We’ve heard all of the above.”
Sharon Coates, president of the board of directors, might say it’s all three. The board decided before the economic downturn to reduce the dairy herd and concentrate on the educational aspect of the farm, she said.
“We were formed as an education center, not as a dairy farm,” Coates said. “The center has been here for 24 years. It is just in the last four years that the dairy farm has become prominent.”
Coates said the board insisted that good homes be found for the cows, and she thinks a good home was located. Jason Burt, who worked at New Pond Farm while earning a degree in agriculture in the 1990s, took nine cows Saturday to his farm in Vermont.
“We’re glad that our girls — that’s what we call the cows– have a kind home to live out their lives,” Coates said, “and that their product will be coming back to this area in the form of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.”
Burt now owns Burtland Farm in Georgia, Vt., and sells milk from his 240-cow herd to Ben & Jerry’s.
“It was a sad day on Saturday,” said Chris Casiello, manager of the dairy operation at New Pond Farm. “We only have one cow on the farm that wasn’t born here. We have a couple more animals to move to reduce the herd to the number the board decided on. ”
Casiello, who built the herd up from one cow, said the board’s decision was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the membership.
“The membership’s reaction isn’t a surprise to me at all,” Casiello said. “The herd has a very loyal following among the membership and the community in general.”