Green Acres

Farms litter Dryden, N.Y. Tractors, hay wagons, combines and the recognizable stench of freshly spread manure reveal the countless farms that call Ithaca, N.Y.'s Route 13 and its tributary roads “home.” However, one “Dairy of Distinction” on the rural Gee Hill Road stands out among the rest.

With more than 300 cows and 400 heifers and calves, the Jerry Dell Farm is much larger than the surrounding one-house, one-barn farms. It also sports separate barns for different cows, more than 1,000 acres of pasture and familial dominance over the winding Gee Hill Road. Oh, and one more thing: It’s completely organic.

Stacks upon stacks of chalky white breeding gloves stand in the place of pesticides. A giant bottle of garlic pills has replaced the spot on the shelf formerly reserved for artificial antibiotics and needles. A dictionary-sized guide to holistic animal care lies open on the old desk.

“Well, it was kind of an accident,” explains Vaughn Sherman, now in his 60s, of his decision to transition his family’s conventional dairy farm to organic in 2000. “We were losing $5,000 to $10,000 a month and we were working 100 hours a week and losing all of it…we weren’t having fun.”

By the year 1997, Vaughn and Sue Sherman had gone through plenty of hardships and were struggling to keep up with the supply demands of the market. The Jerry Dell Farm, originally owned and developed by Vaughn’s parents, was running its cows to the edge.

“We were milking three times a day. We were using hormones… these cows were just working. I never thought you could get that kind of milk out of a cow,” says Vaughn Sherman.

“I said, ‘This is crazy. I’m going back to how we used to do it. The cows are going back outside where they’re supposed to be. They’re gonna eat grass, I’m gonna get rid of the [hormones], and I’m gonna milk them two times a day instead of three times a day.’ And so we did. Six months later we had our bills all paid off; we had $160,000 worth of bills sitting on the table.”

After a neighboring farmer mentioned the benefits of transitioning to organic farming to Vaughn and Sue Sherman, the farmers realized the Jerry Dell farm was close to organic qualification already: A process then run by statewide certification agencies.

The Jerry Dell Farm was certified through the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) in 2000, a process that involves submitting an application, a subsequent review and on-farm inspection, as well as a final review and the inevitable fee.

After fully transitioning, the farm went from producing 100 pounds of milk per cow, per day, to 50 pounds per cow, per day and lost a total of 10,000 pounds in its herd average.

However, one simple rule renders all of the surface losses caused by the transition moot. As Vaughn Sherman puts it, “If you be a little nicer to the cows, they’ll be a little nicer to you. Plus you get paid a little more.”

Not only do organic milk distribution companies – Horizon, Hood, and Organic Valley (the company the Shermans distribute their milk with) -- pay almost double for well-produced organic products, the financial and work input to organic farming is significantly less.