Dairy cows come home to county farms

The last dairy farm in Washington County went out four years ago. This month, two farms C Tide Mill Farm in Edmunds and Herb McPhail's in Perry C are getting back into milking cows, now that organic dairies are making it possible to make a living as a dairy farmer in the Sunrise County once again.

Bob and Terry Bell, the seventh generation of Bells to work Tide Mill Farm, stopped milking the week that Bob and Jane Bell's son Aaron was born back in 1977. Twenty-eight years later, Aaron's wife Carly DelSignore is due with their third child this week, the week that Aaron began milking the newly arrived herd of 30 Holsteins and Jerseys. "The cows left with the baby, and now they're coming back with the baby," notes Jane Bell.

"I had a hankering for a while to start milking," says Aaron Bell. "Hopefully this can be a new awakening for the dairy industry in eastern Maine."

In early November, the first shipment of organic milk from Washington County was picked up at Herb McPhail's farm, destined for Oneida, N.Y., to be bottled under the Stonyfield Organic Fluid Milk Label at the H.P. Hood plant. "I hope that other dairy farmers will look closely at the opportunity to go organic," says McPhail, who has 25 cows. "It will give me a chance to milk my cows and get paid a fair price."

Both the dairy farmer and the dairy cow in Washington County had diminished in numbers over the years to the point of being extinct species. In 1880 there were 7,379 dairy cows in the county; by 1987 their numbers had dwindled to 254. And in 1960 there were 18 dairy farms in Washington County; in 1990 there were four. David James of Charlotte was the last dairy farmer in Washington County, going out of the business on November 29, 2001, almost four years to the day that the organic dairy farmers are beginning. Earlier that same year, Wayne Smith of Cherryfield also stopped milking.

James says that the trucking costs were why he decided to give it up. He had been hauling the milk to Smith's, where a truck would pick up for both of them and take the milk to West Lynn, Mass. When Smith stopped, James had to haul it to Prospect Harbor. Having his own truck, it ended up costing James about $2,300 a month for trucking, while he says most dairy farmers would pay perhaps $450 to $500 a month.

Back in the 1980s McPhail also used to have a dairy farm, with the milk trucked to Grant's Dairy in Bangor. "They kept getting rid of us," he says of the Washington County dairy farms. "The trucking cost us a fortune." He recalls paying between $1,000 to $1,500 a month to have the milk shipped.

However, all three buyers of organic milk in Maine C Horizon Organic, H.P. Hood and the CROPP Cooperative C do not charge farmers any hauling fee, even though, for Hood, the milk is being trucked 800 miles from Washington County to upstate New York.

McPhail points to the stability of the price as another reason he decided to go with the organic offer by Hood. Hood is offering a guaranteed price flat rate of $24.50 a hundredweight. "We have a two-year contract and the price won't drop below that," says McPhail. Hood also offers premiums for quality and volume and a sign-on bonus, adding the potential for an additional $5.50 to $6 a hundredweight.
Because of the shortage of supply of organic milk, the price and premium programs for organic milk are greater than for the conventional market. The base price for milk set by the Maine Milk Commission in November was $17.80 for Class I milk and $14.50 for Class II. "With the regular milk market, you never knew exactly what you would get," says McPhail. "It would be $17 one month and $11 the next month."

Although Hood is offering a guaranteed price and trucking at no cost to the farmer, not many Maine dairy farms are switching over to organic production at this point, according to Stanley Millay, executive director of the Maine Milk Commission. Of the 358 dairy farms in the state, 56 are presently organic, producing about 6-7% of the total milk production. He notes that the decision to become organic certified is a matter of philosophy for some farmers, while for others the price stability is the deciding factor. Non-organic dairy farms are "at the mercy of the marketplace," with the milk commission setting a minimum price each month based on the price set by the federal government. Milk production per cow, though, is a little less with organic dairy farms, Millay says.

However, the demand by consumers for organic dairy products has been growing by over 20% per year from 1990 through 2001, according to Hood. This growth in demand is expected to continue for the next decade. In 2005, there were approximately 80 farms transitioning to organic milk production in the northeastern U.S. The buyers for organic milk to supply the population centers on the east coast of the U.S. do not have enough organic milk, Hood maintains, and organic milk is being brought into the northeast from the midwest. Since the supply is not keeping up with the demand, an opportunity exists for dairy farmers in the northeast to fill that need.

Presently, Hood Organic is picking up milk from 11 farms in Maine with four more starting in early 2006. These farms gained organic certification through the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) of Unity. Certification of a dairy farm as organic requires the land used to grow the crops to be free of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides for three years. The cows must go through a one-year transition and remain free of antibiotics, hormones and other synthetic health treatments.

"They don't get a lot of grain. They eat the natural way C what they were supposed to," says McPhail of the cows. "You don't push your cows. They're happier that way."

"The market is there for organic milk and I believe that other dairy farmers in Downeast Maine can benefit from selling their milk organically," adds McPhail. "The stable price will allow farmers to get back into business in Washington County."

McPhail believes he can make a living now as a dairy farmer. "I might not live fancy for awhile, but I don't think anyone in Washington County lives too darn fancy."

David James, who still has beef and dairy cows that he buys and sells, says he might get back into milking now.

And Aaron Bell, the eighth generation of Bells at Tide Mill Farm on the shores of Cobscook Bay, observes, "Hopefully there'll be more farms in the next generation. I want to see some coastal farms get going."