Vt. Maple Products

Well It’s Friday, time to relax a bit for the weekend. I’ve got some stuff to fix down at the sugar house, making that pure Vermont maple syrup is a year long job! I thought I’d talk a bit about the dairy farms here in Vermont, since they are such a big part of our state.

Tourist are surprised at how many dairy farms there are in the state. Just about anywhere you go you will find a dairy farm. In fact dairy farms are the #1 agricultural business in the state. Farmers have been carving out patches of pasture out of the hilly woods of Vermont for many years.

Most of the state is a combination of rolling hills with patchworks of pastures cut out, with hundreds of those black and white cows dotting the landscape. In fact there are more cows than people in the state of Vermont!

Almost everyone who was born and raised in Vermont grew up on a farm, worked on a farm or had family that had a farm. Seeing tractors and hay wagons on the roads is very common in Vermont. Because farmers spread cow manure on their fields for fertilizer it can smell kind of bad around a dairy farm if your not use to it!

Those black and white cows you see are called Holstein cows. Those are by far the most common dairy cows as the are very good at giving lots of milk. They are milked 2 or 3 times a day, which is how they can produce so much milk.

Being big animals they eat a lot and need a lot of room, so a Vermont Dairy farm needs a lot of pasture land and equipment to harvest hay for the winter, feed the cows grain, grow corn to feed the cows and so on. It’s common for a farm to have close to one million dollars worth of farm machinery!

A lot of dairy farms in Vermont also grow common vegetables and sell them at roadside stands. Also, since most farms have been carved out of the woodlands, they have a lot of maple trees that they own. So, a lot of farmers also build a sugar house and make maple syrup!

The income the farmers make from selling pure Vt. maple syrup can make the difference between having some extra money or just getting by. So stopping by a farmers roadside stand you can find not only fresh vegetables but maple syrup, maple candy and even some fresh honey.

So now you know a bit more about dairy farms in Vermont. Some large farms actually give tours where you can see the cows being milked, fed and see the cute calves! To find out more about farming in Vermont you can visit the Vermont agency of agriculture.

I hope you get a chance to visit Vermont and take a look at the dairy farms up here. While your here sample all the fresh and pure produce Vermont has to offer, and of course take back some of that pure Vermont maple syrup!