Episode 254: Celebrate Dairy Month!

The Farm Report

June is National Dairy Month and The Farm Report is celebrating as host Erin Fairbanks chats with Beth Chittenden of Dutch Hollow Farm. Dutch Hollow Farm is owned by the Chittenden family and is a Registered Jersey Dairy Farm that milks about 600 cows and has about 1,000 cows total. Beth shares the details surrounding the breed of cows used on the farm as well as how their milk is used once it leaves the farm. Beth goes on to explain how Dutch Hollow Farm holds animal husbandry in high regard and how they try to breed for polled cows (naturally born without horns). Also, Beth recently took a group of teen and pre-teen dairy farmers into NYC where they explored Beecher’s Handmade Cheese to watch cheese being made and how NYC people see dairy in the dairy case, plus checked out the dairy case competition in “milk” (soy, almond milk, etc). NYC, as Beth elaborates on, is the most important and largest market for fluid milk for NY dairy farmers so it is necessary to educate the city on the benefits of dairy milk. After the break, Erin welcomes Mark Doyle of Fishkill Farms to the program as a highlighted adventure from our friends at EscapeMaker.com. Mark gives listeners a brief history of the farm and how Fishkill Farms has grown from a conventionally farmed apple orchard in need of new trees and new tractors, into a diversified, ecological farm with new orchards and infrastructures. This program was brought to you by EscapeMaker.com.

“We are the largest or second largest herd in Jersey State. Our milk is primarily used for making dairy products like cheese… rather than being consumed as whole milk.”

“If we don’t have a market then why do we need a farm?”

“When you ask somebody between milk they don’t really know the differences between dairy milk and milk alternatives and where it all comes from… we need to convey that to [customers].”

—Beth Chittenden on The Farm Report