Transcription of David Herring for the show Farm Fresh Maine #186
Speaker 1: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle, recorded in the Studio of Maine Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician, trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine. Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.LoveMaineRadio.com for details.
Now, here are a few highlights from this week’s program.
David: We’re going to help train the next generation of organic dairy farmers for Maine and New England and we feel like we are a great fit for it. The property is really well-suited to dairy, even though we’ve never done dairy. We think that the benefits can be really far-reaching and long-lasting for Maine and New England.
Matt: Being a farmer means that you’re dedicating your life to something and everybody has a specific purpose in life I think and to be given an opportunity in which you can do what you think is best for you, I think that being a dairy farmer is an exciting experience for myself and for these young folks that want to do it as well. Gives them an opportunity and it’s in a perfect location, Freeport is so close to everything.
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Dr. Belisle: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 186, Farm Fresh Maine, airing for the first time on Sunday, April 5th, 2015. Maine has a rich agricultural heritage. It was considered the bread basket of the Northeast during Civil War times when it provided much of the wheat for the Union Army. Today, we are experiencing a resurgence of interest in farming as a new generation takes to the fields to providers with local nourishment. On today’s show, we speak with David Herring and Matthew DeGrandpre of Wolfe’s Neck Farm about the transformations they have witnessed and why they are passionate about Maine agriculture. Thank you for joining us.
Having been working with Love Maine Radio for several years now, it is a great privilege to spend time with people more than once. Today, we’re spending time with David Herring, who we had on talking about Maine Hudson Trails in one of our very early shows. Today, he is here because he’s representing Wolfe’s Neck Farm. David Herring has been in management and leadership roles for nonprofit organizations for the last 15 years. He became the executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Farm in 2012. Since then the Freeport based nonprofit has gone through major transformation that includes an ambitious new long-range vision and the impending launch of a major new initiative to support the future of organic dairy in Maine and New England. Great to have you back again here.
David: Thank you, it’s great to be back.
Dr. Belisle: First, I want to talk to you about why was that you went from Maine Hudson Trails to Wolfe’s Neck Farm. Anybody who’s been listening to the radio show for a while, probably has the same question that I do.
David: Yup and you are not the only one that’s funny, I think my parents and my family still are kind of like, “So wait, you’re a farmer now?” It’s not that quite simple. You know Maine is one of those places, where I think people oftentimes choose the place more so than they choose a job in that place if you will. I was drawn to Maine for a number of reasons and I got the gig at Maine Hudson and it was amazing. Yet, it was time for change and I knew that I kind of chosen a career path that was a little bit unique. It took me a little bit of time to think through, kind of what would be the right next step for me. I knew I wanted to stay in Maine. I knew that I wanted to lead an organization that was placed based, as opposed to policy or advocacy or other important things, but I connect to places. The opportunity at Wolfe’s Neck really spoke to me right away because even though on the surface, it’s farming, it’s a place that needs to be cared for, it’s a place that people love that people are drawn to and that I knew that I could help the organization use the place to connect people to nature and to food and to health.
For a number of reasons, it made sense to me and what’s been amazing honestly is that since I took the job, my choice has been affirmed and reaffirmed many many times just because I think it’s been a great fit.
Dr. Belisle: How old are your children now?
David: 4 and 18 months.
Dr. Belisle: When we interviewed you a few years ago, you just had the one and pretty small.
David: Yeah, she was probably one and maybe coming up on two, I don’t remember exactly when we did the show. That was part of it too. The Maine Huds gig kind of had me spread all around and I was at a point where I wasn’t sure we were going to move up to the Carrabasett and stay with the organization. When I decided that it was time to find another opportunity, we knew that it was kind of the next domino to fall if you will and that I needed to get that job, so that we could get a bigger house, so that we could have another kid and kind of pursue our dreams and all that kind of fell into place.
Dr. Belisle: Well that’s the sense as you were talking that I was getting was this evolution of a family, the need to settle in, the need to put down roots. It’s really great that Wolfe’s Neck was available to do that for you.
David: Totally, I think what’s been really great is that it’s just a great fit for our family and for me as a parent and for my kids and because they love it there and they think it’s daddy’s farm, even though it’s not. I just get the honor and privilege of enjoying it every day.
Dr. Belisle: I used to have a small writing cottage down in that area, so I would, in between writing, I would go out for hikes. I would hike out to Wolfe’s Neck Farm and it’s so, I want to use the word bucolic. It’s so bucolic, it’s so Maine.
David: It is yeah.
Dr. Belisle: It’s something that a lot of southern Maine families have enjoyed for quite a while, watching the cows being born and watching the other animals come into the world, it feels like a gift.
David: Well, it is a gift and it’s one that I think we could enjoy even more than we are now just by caring for the place and by creating opportunities for people to connect with it. The history of Wolfe’s Neck is interesting. It was a gift from the Smith Family back in the 80s and it was gifted to the University of Southern Maine. They had it for about 10 years and then it came back to a small foundation that the family had set up. At that time that was in the mid-90s that they turned it into a nonprofit operating foundation. It’s interesting, it was a gift that was gifted once, then kind of gifted back and now in some ways, I feel like the transformation that we are going through is one where we are re-gifting it again.
Dr. Belisle: The thing that I found interesting was that you had cows and I knew the cows. Then, the cows went away because I believe Pine Land got the cows, but now cows are back, but in a very different way.
David: Well, almost back, yes.
Dr. Belisle: Almost back.
David: Yeah, they’re coming back. We’re bringing the cows back home. Yeah, in the space between when Pineland left and now, we have had cows there. We’ve had anywhere from 50 to 100 herd of cattle there each year that we’ve been raising in partnership with other farms, to kind of help them bring up their capacity and continue support local food. But, it was kind of a place holder if you will while we as organization figured out why are we farming and for what purpose and kind of what’s our higher calling. It’s taken some time to get there, but I think we’ve really landed in something special.
We decided about, I think it was about a year and a half ago, we entered into some conversations with the folks at Stonyfield. Stonyfield is the largest organic yogurt brand in the country and the number three yogurt brand in the country. They started telling as about some of the challenges facing organic dairy in Maine and New England and the country. We, at the time, were looking for a kind of higher calling, related to farming and what do we dedicate this amazing farm property to. Long story short, we are going to help train the next generation of organic dairy farmers for Maine and New England. We feel like we’re a great fit for it. The property is really well suited to dairy, even though we’ve never done dairy. We think that the benefits can be really far reaching and long lasting for Maine and New England.
Dr. Belisle: We had Cecily Pingree on the show and she was taking about the film that she had produced about MOOMilk, Maine’s Own Organic Milk. When I heard of its untimely demise, I was very sad because I think that this is something that we need if we are going to drink milk, you need to get it from a safe and healthy source. When this opportunity came into being that made me really happy.
David: Oh good, me too. Even though the two aren’t necessarily connected, I mean it was maybe just happenstance that MOO was going away right around the time that we launched our program or announced the launch of our program. They are not necessarily connected, but it’s all part of the same industry and that’s agriculture and organic dairy more specifically. It’s vital for Maine’s rural economy to have a thriving agricultural economy and dairy and organic dairy are really kind of the backbone of that and that there used to be so much more dairy being produced in Maine and there isn’t nearly as much now. That’s an issue in a number of fronts and we feel that having more organic dairy being produced in Maine will have support rural economies. It’s going to support our health. It’s going to keep organic dairy on the shelves in the store, which is an issue in Maine and across the country. Hopefully, it’s going to mean that the market share for organic dairy products grows while the market share potentially for conventional dairy would then just shrink just a bit.
Dr. Belisle: Tell me what that looks like, what is it that your organization, what is that Wolfe’s Neck Farm is going to do to promote the education of organic dairy farmers in the state?
David: Yeah, it’s really twofold. One is and the official title of the program is the organic dairy research and farmer training program. The research side is one where we are going to really focus on partnering with people in organizations and entities, interested in doing research, related to organic dairy and specifically related to forages and pasture based management in ways to help create a more viable and profitable enterprise for small organic dairy farmers. That’s kind of one way that we are going to help support the current dairy farmers or current organic dairy or regular conventional dairy farmers. The new farmer training piece is one where … The average age of dairy farmers in Maine is somewhere around 60. In the next five or so years, a lot of those folks are going to be interested in retiring and they’re going to need to transition out and so with roughly 50 or 60 organic dairies right now in Maine that could mean that may be as many as half of them could be going away in the next five years.
This is one of the concerns that Stonyfield had was if we are going to continue to grow as a business and other organic dairy businesses are going to continue to grow, how is that going to be possible if the amount of milk being produced is going down? We saw an immediate and need there to kind of dedicate the property of Wolfe’s Neck to training these new farmers. Each year, four new trainees are going to come in and live on the farm for residential training program, where they’ll stay there for 18 months. They’ll work under the direction of a director of the program, but also a team of advisors that is a really group that we’ve assembled, an 18 member advisory board. They’re going to learn all about how to be a profitable and viable organic dairy business. I say business because that’s really what farming is, it’s a business. If you are great with animals, but you are not good with business, it is not going to necessarily mean that you are going to run a viable business.
We’re going to spend a lot of time focused on business planning, on financial management, on pasture management and lots of the hard skills and technical skills that they are going to need. I think that the industry isn’t necessarily hurting for people who have technical skills and people who love animals or want to be in farming, but it’s more that people need to understand how to be a viable and profitable business and how to manage a business.
Dr. Belisle: There is also a certain amount of hard work that goes into farming that until you actually are doing it, it’s probably impossible to understand. This will probably give people the opportunity to really understand what that means to be going into this field.
David: Well differently and it’s a good point. I mean I think we are hoping that we can attract trainees who have already maybe crossed that bridge and understand that this is hard to work that this is going to be something that they are going to dedicate their lives to. I think one of the things that we’ve been talking about, the team of folks that’s been putting together the training is that we want the training to be harder and more challenging than what they are going to face afterwards. We’ve been just putting a lot of thought into what does that mean and how do we make this as real as possible and even taking a step farther, how do we make to more challenging than real world, so that when they get out, they are prepared for what they are going to be facing, which is a lot of hard work and potentially hardships. But, want to make sure that the people coming out of this program are ready.
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There’s also a family element to this particular vocation that doesn’t really exist in other occupations. If you are going to be a farmer, then your family is going to be a farming family. That’s different.
David: Well, it is different and we put a lot of thought into the size of the model that we are going to be operating at Wolfe’s Neck. The idea is that we’re going to have 60 to 80 [inaudible 00:17:35] milking herd and that’s right in the range for a small family farm. What we want to do is we want to train these new farmers using that model and have it be replicable, so they would then go off with their families if they have a family and start small farms because that’s what Maine is well suited to. It’s Maine and New England are well suited to that. The topography and geography here in Maine is well-suited to that. Even though dairy has kind of gone bigger and fewer in terms of bigger dairy farms, fewer of them and more cows that’s not necessarily well-suited to New England and to Maine. Maine is much better suited to small family farms and that’s why we feel that setting up the model the way we are is going to be well-suited to them.
Dr. Belisle: I always found it interesting that the Wolfe’s Neck property had so many different aspects to it. I know that the coastal studies for girls, there is a relationship there. There’s [inaudible 00:18:40], there’s a relationship there. I was there for the taste of the nation, so I know events happen there. There was an event that you did last summer, was held at a barn, where you can go to have a wedding done. That’s very Maine too that you can have different offerings in different areas in order to create a viable location.
David: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s interesting, I had no idea how much goes on at Wolfe’s Neck Farm till I took this job. It’s a tremendous amount, especially when you [inaudible 00:19:16] the campground and kind of that visitor aspect of it and the thousands of people that come out there each year to go hiking or camping or kayaking or biking, you name it. But, in some ways, we’re kind of that model farm and that the most successful farms have a second income at the farm. Maybe one person in the family is the farmer and the other one is supporting the farmer, but is also may be a nurse or a teacher or doctor or something else. In some ways, Wolfe’s Neck is kind of like that, even though we are obviously a different entity because we’re a nonprofit organization, but we have the campground. We have these other recreational experiences. We have events, we have just other things that are going on out there that help support our farming and help support our mission and what we are doing out there.
Dr. Belisle: There is a history of saltwater farms in Maine, which I think is very unique. I assume that you can have a saltwater farm anywhere that there is saltwater, but that’s different than big dairy in the middle of the United States. That gives us a very unique way of offering a product.
David: It does, I think the Wolfe’s Neck property is really well-suited to dairy. I think people were kind of, “Wow, so you’ve never done dairy out there, it’s always been a beef farm, but you never done dairy,?” Well beef comes from cows and so does milk. The more that we are learning about raising cows on pasture and this isn’t just we Wolfe’s Neck, but we as a society, the more that we’re learning about raising cows on grass, the more that we’re coming to understand that it’s better for our health, it’s better for the environment, it’s better for our farms and better for our soil and there’s no place that it’s more important to do that than at a place like Wolfe’s Neck because we are coastal and because we got all these amazing natural resources surrounding us. It’s imperative that we take care of the soil that we take care of the farm and that we manage it in a way that’s going to help us be good stewards of those natural resources and specifically [inaudible 00:21:35] Freeport is a really productive [inaudible 00:21:39] zone. There are dozens of families or more in Maine that make their livelihood from them.
It’s critical that we are farming in a way that’s respectful of everything that’s going on out there.
Dr. Belisle: We haven’t really talked about why one would care about having organic milk or organic dairy products. I’m sure a lot of people who are listening have some idea as to how why organic anything is a good idea. I know that when I have patients who come to see me and they drink milk in their family, it’s even more important I think to be able to access organic dairy and dairy products because this has fat in it. Dairy milk has fat in it and fat is where things are stored. If you drink something that has fat that’s not healthy, it’s got pesticides in it, it’s got antibiotics in it, it’s got things that might disrupt the hormone system then that actually is going to have more of an impact on you than maybe eating non-organic produce, but we don’t hear about this all the time.
David: Well, milk is a big business and you’re right, we probably don’t hear that much about it. Since we have kind of launched this initiative or decided to launch this initiative, I’ve certainly learned a lot about the world of organic dairy. I have had a lot of conversations with people that they’ve said, “Well, what’s the difference, like what makes organic milk organic?” Really, the primary difference is what they’re eating. A conventional cow that’s producing milk, there are no restrictions or regulations around that cow getting access to the outside. There is no regulations around what they are eating. I shouldn’t say no regulations, but they can eat a grain based diet. That’s not necessarily what cows were meant to do, but that’s what conventional dairy has done when you look at kind of making it as profitable as possible. The lifespan of conventional dairy cows is more like 2 to 3 years. We found that giving them lots of grain is helping them produce more and more milk, but it’s not necessarily good for the cow and it’s not necessarily always what’s best for people either.
Organic milk really is, it’s milk that’s produced from cows that spend the better portion of their time outside. When they are outside, they are doing what cows are naturally predisposed to do and that’s eat grass. The primary difference is that cows that are producing organic milk are eating primarily a diet of forages. They are eating what’s growing in the pastures that they are having access to and what that does is it produces a product that has more better fats and just is a healthier product, not to mention that the soil that that grass is growing in can’t be treated with pesticides or fertilizers that don’t meet the organic standard. Not only is organic milk better for you, it’s also better for the environment, just like organic produce is versus conventionally grown produce.
Dr. Belisle: I would also assume that cows that are eating grass outside, which is what that meant to do are going to feel less stressed than cows that are kept inside and fed grain.
David: Healthier cows produce better milk and healthier milk. That’s definitely the case.
Dr. Belisle: Does it taste different?
David: I don’t necessarily know that it tastes different. What does taste different in a product that is just now coming out or just kind of coming out in Maine if you go to like a whole foods you might see at [inaudible 00:25:41], I see is carrying it. Organic Valley has a line called Grass Milk. It’s 100% grass fed cows, producing that milk. What’s interesting about it is if you drink it at different times of the year, it’s been said that the taste takes on the taste of the forages that they are eating at that time of the year. If you are drinking it in the winter, chances are that cow was eating [inaudible 00:26:10] versus in the summer and at different times in the summer or fall, it might be eating at different kinds of grasses that bring a different taste of the milk.
I think that when you go to the lengths of drinking grass milk, I think you’d notice the difference, but I don’t necessarily know that people can tell much of a difference between organic milk and conventional milk.
Dr. Belisle: I don’t drink milk, I must admit, so I will never be able to know this for myself, but for people who are listening who drink milk, I would love to hear what their perception of grass milk versus non-grass milk, organic versus nonorganic, just because I think it’s kind of interesting. This is food that comes from somewhere, so all the things you just described go into making this food and then we put it in our bodies. That makes a difference.
David: It does. It’s interesting, the more you think about the food that you are eating, there’s so many things to think about, how it’s grown or where it came from or what we have to do to grow it or how far we have transport it. Dairy has its own [inaudible 00:27:22] behind it as well. Just some of the stuff that we’re talking about in terms of what it takes to produce it and whether it’s conventional or organic and is it from cows that were grown or raised on a feed lot in Texas, where there are 2000 other cows there. They occupy 10 acres or is it from cows
that were raised on pasture at a farm in Albion Maine, where there’s 30 cows and 100 acres and they’re enjoying time outside and being healthy.
When you start dialing in like that it makes it easier to go to the grocery store and pay a little bit more because the cost of food has been kind of skewed a little bit over the years when you think about things like subsidies for corn and things like that. It makes it easy to make that choice at least for people that can afford to go a dollar more and buy an organic product.
Dr. Belisle: David, how can people find out about the organic dairy program and the work that you’re doing at Wolfe’s Neck Farm?
David: Well, obviously they can go to our website, so WolfesNeckFarm.org and we’ve got a number of new pages on there now about the organic dairy program. Later this month, we hope to begin accepting applications for the first four trainees for the program. If you’re listening and you’re somebody who is into dairy or into organic dairy and you know that this is a career that you want to pursue but you need a little bit more to get you to the point where you’re ready for farm ownership or farm operation, this could be a good opportunity for you to pursue that career and help revive Maine’s organic dairy industry.
Dr. Belisle: We’ve been speaking with David Herring who is executive director of Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to us again today.
David: Thanks so much, I enjoyed it.