PINE PLAINS - Barry Chase knows the names of every cow in his 60-head Holstein dairy herd.
He knows each cow's mother and, in most cases, grandmother.
He even knows which ones likes to have their heads scratched.
FOR 35 years, Chase has toiled in the tradition of the family-owned dairy farm, getting up before dawn to milk the cows and do chores, with little time off and no time for the family vacations that so many in the work-a-day world look forward to.
And he does for far less money than most people make in 9-to-5 five jobs.
|
|
It's a decision that not only will end a family tradition that began with his father but also the dairy farm tradition in Pine Plains and Northern Dutchess.
CHASEHOLM Farm, owned by Chase and his wife, Rosemary Lyons-Chase, is the last dairy operation in the small Northern Dutchess town that once boasted dozens of dairy farms. And it is only one of only about 30 dairy farms that still dot the Dutchess County landscape, said Les Holcoop, an agriculture education agent with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Dutchess County.
The towns of Northeast and Amenia remain relatively robust dairy farm territory, and there are scattered dairy farms throughout central and southern Dutchess County. But when the cows leave the Chaseholm Farm barn, dairy farming in Northern Dutchess will become a thing of the past.
THE LOSS of Chaseholm Farm "is sad for the agricultural community," Holcoop said.
"It's a sad, sad, sad day - that's for sure," said Pine Plains Supervisor Gregg Pulver, a crop farmer in the community. "It's really an end of an era. It's what Pine Plains used to be - dairy farms."
CHASEHOLM Farm, on Chase Road, was started by Chase's father, Kenneth, a dentist in Pine Plains who combined three smaller farms to create the 350-acre farm. Chaseholm began as a horse farm, and Kenneth Chase converted it to a Holstein dairy farm when Barry was a boy.
The family lived in town, but father and son spent weekends on the farm, and the life "just took to me," Chase said.
Chase went away to college, then spent two years in the Peace Corps, but after earning his master's degree, he returned to Pine Plains and the life he loved.
"I had to get back and see the cows," he said. "It gets in your blood."
CHASE SAID a "confluence" of events led to his decision to sell his herd and leave the business in which he's spent about half his life.
His age and knee problems have made it more difficult than in the past to tend to the cows, and his children - Farley, Rory and Sarah - have no interest in becoming dairy farmers, Chase said.
Also, depressed milk prices have made dairy farming a money-losing venture, especially as energy costs and property taxes continue to rise.
LAST YEAR was particularly difficult for dairy farmers, Chase said. Farmers were being paid roughly $12 per 100 pounds of milk, but they need to make about $16 per hundredweight just to break even, he said.
Chaseholm Farm, like most dairy farms in the Northeast, ended 2006 with a considerable loss, Chase said.
So now, with Sarah, his youngest child, in college and his wife semi-retired, "it just seemed like it was time to look at it a little differently," Chase said.
CHASE SAID he recently put his 60-head herd up for sale and hopes to sell the herd as a single unit "so I can go visit them."
"I couldn't have a dispersal sale," he said. "I would like to keep them together."
And although most of the cows will go, some, like Ramah, a 16-year old Holstein that belongs to Chase's wife, will stay at the farm to live out their lives.
BUT EVEN though the dairy operation will end, farming will continue at Chaseholm Farm, Chase said.
He will continue to breed and sell Holsteins - an enterprise that currently makes up 20 percent of the farm's income - and still will produce crops like corn and hay.
"I have to do enough to pay the taxes," Chase said.
Property taxes on the Chaseholm Farm - which has three houses, a couple of barns and an agricultural exemption - total $21,000 a year.
Chase said he also may reintroduce other livestock to the farm.
"I would love to think I would have some chickens again, and maybe some pigs. I love pigs," he said.
And "I'm sure I'll have a bigger garden than I have now," he added.
AND THEN there's Ireland.
Chase, who has had only one vacation, to Martha's Vineyard, since becoming a dairy farmer, has his sights set on a vacation to the Emerald Isle, where, according to a study by the Irish Daily Review, there are 33,000 dairy farms and 1.5 million head of dairy cattle.
