We're Losing Our Dairy Farms

Dairy farms are going out of business all across our state.

In Wallingford this shows how development is taking over the land where dairy farms and orchards once thrived. Barns fall down from neglect or they are bulldozed for subdivisions and industrial uses.

Like many others, this farm in Coventry has lost the signs of activity (from tractors and tools to the cows themselves) that accompany the working farm.

In Willington, the Mihaliaks' farm has just given up its dairy business.

In a more hopeful sign, this Orange farm has lost its dairy herd - here is the empty ground floor stable barn (converted use of an older English barn) with the old stanchions -

but a new generation of the Treat Family has resumed farming, growing vegetables and Christmas trees.

And efforts are under way to keep dairy a part of our landscape and diet - groups like ctmilk.org and the Working Lands Alliance are working to keep dairy farming viable, preserve farmland, and promote local food.

Photo credits: Willington, M. Lacy; Others, C. Hitchcock

Dairy Farmers (and Cows) at Work

Even as we mourn the loss of a barn in Cornwall last week, let's salute the active dairy farms across our state. These are the folks who are holding out against the odds - through the freezing months they continue their work to provide us with our holiday eggnog, our melted cheese sandwiches, and so much more.

Here's a small sample of dairy barns and their residents.

This farm in Pomfret illustrates the progressive farm of the mid-2oth century, when stable barns with gambrel hay lofts were constructed from pre-fabricated kits, and the free-stall pole barn began to be the preferred home for the herd.

In Wallingford, the traditional farmhouse and English bank barn at the Co-Ag Farm looks like the postcard view of scenic New England,

but on the other side, here's the extensive modern farm with its pole barns.

The Knowltons have been farming this land in Ashford for generations.

One of their barns blew away in the great hurricane of 1938, but this unusual New England high drive barn, over a century old, has been jacked up onto a new foundation and continues to store hay while the heifers grow up nearby.

Photographs by: James Sexton, Charlotte Hitchcock