This Connecticut family loves to share their passion for dairy farming

Mother and daughter duo, Diane Morin and Erica Hermonot, and the generations of men and women who preceded them at their centuries-old dairy farm in Woodstock, Conn., know firsthand that you must rely on family and your community to prosper.

In October 1920, Ethal Barrett, a World War I veteran and Diane’s grandfather, and his wife, Estella, purchased Fairholm Farm, a 100-acre homestead of rolling hills.

During the Great Depression, they and their three children, George, Doris and Barbara, sold milk and dairy products, like homemade cottage cheese, to support their family and feed their community during this historic time of economic struggle.

When Ethal passed away suddenly, 16-year-old George helped his mother and sisters run the farm. He returned to manage it full-time after graduating from high school. Similarly, George’s daughter, Diane, her mother and siblings took on the farm after George passed away at 62 from kidney disease.

Today, Diane co-owns the family farm with her husband, Todd, daughter, Erica, and Erica’s husband, Jon. Diane manages the books and Todd manages the crops and machinery it takes to run the farm. Jon has taken on the responsibility of maintaining the robots as well as helping wherever needed, and Erica manages the herd.

The two couples each have a house on the property. Erica and Jon are raising their three children, Mackenzie, Alex and Ben, in the original 1812 farmhouse — now a cheery, bright yellow instead of its original white color.

Diane and Erica are proud that Fairholm Farm has passed down to two generations of women leaders. They consider their roles on the farm as continuing their family's tradition of hard work.

“If there was a job that needed to be done, it didn’t matter who stepped up to do it — so long as it got done,” Erica says. “There has always been a woman with a seat at the table at our farm.”

In a family photo dated 1921, her great-grandmother Estella sits on a horse-drawn mower. She’s tending to the same land her granddaughter, great-granddaughter and great-great-grandchildren now live on and work. Estella not only ran the farm, but she was also a college graduate — a significant accomplishment for young women of her generation.

What began as a homestead has now grown into a family dairy farm with 550 acres of land and a herd of around 415 Holstein cows.

Diane and Erica also sell meat and eggs to their community, just as Ethal and Estella did. A century later, Fairholm Farm now has a small retail store and a website to sell products beyond the borders of Woodstock.
 

Cultivating the connection between dairy and communities

Dairy isn’t just a livelihood for the Fairholm Farm family — it’s their lifestyle. They love sharing their passion for dairy farming with their community through the local 4-H club, hosting farm tours for the public and for schools, helping showcase calving at the local fair’s cow birthing center and sharing snapshots of farm life on social media.

“Erica has done a lot of informative content for our social media,” Diane says. “Even our friends have commented how much they love the old pictures and learning about the history of the farm.”

One initiative at Fairholm Farm that particularly cultivates the connection between dairy and the community is their farm camp program.

“In our area, there’s a huge push for local farming,” Erica explains. “We love having the opportunity to educate and strengthen the connection between farms and consumers, bridging the gap between production and consumption.”

During the past two summers, Fairholm Farm has invited children from the local community to experience life in agriculture through their farm camp.

Each of the four weeks of the farm camp has a different theme, from tending to farmland to cow care. A farm camp session runs five days a week, from 9 a.m.–noon. At the end of farm camp, the children’s families are invited to the farm for a hay wagon ride and picnic. The day is topped off with ice cream and the kids excitedly sharing stories about their experience.

While the farm camp, tours, events and social media keep the calendar full, the Fairholm Farm family love educating the community and sharing their passion for dairy and farming.

In 2018, the farm invested in four DeLaval Voluntary Milking Systems — robotic milkers — to support their traditional milking parlor. The robots allow their cows to be milked at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

By 2019, however, they had purchased two additional milkers and transitioned to robotic milking full-time. In addition to the six robotic milkers that run 24/7, they use a “training” robotic milker to ease heifers (young female cows who haven’t yet borne a calf) into the sensation and experience of robotic milking.

“You’re using your time more efficiently with the robotic milkers, and getting better results,” Diane says. “And the cows are quieter, happier and healthier. It’s been a win-win for our farm.”

Taking care of their herd’s well-being is always their top priority. If you ask Erica about having a favorite cow, she’ll say she’s attached to all of them, but there are a few she considers her favorites.

“I have one; she’s around 11 years old, and she’s given us about 260,000 pounds of milk,” Erica shares. Others, she adds, are hardworking, or have sweet personalities or cute, distinctive markings.

“We treat and care for [the cows] individually. Even at this scale, with 400 milking cows, I could probably go out in the barn and tell you who everyone is,” she says.

Other innovative cow care technology they’ve embraced include activity monitors to track individual movements within the herd that help the team at Fairholm Farm proactively take care of their sick or pregnant cows.

They also work with veterinarians from Tufts University, a private research university in the Boston area, to ensure they stay on the cutting edge of innovative reproductive technology.

As forward-thinking farm owners, Todd, Diane, Jon and Erica are exploring ways to continuously weave sustainability into their farm.

“Sustainability has to be part of the conversation for the future,” Erica says.

No-till farming and cover cropping, which help regenerate the soil, have been longstanding practices in their approach. As a family, they believe considering energy solutions are critical for the future of their farm. New technology that produces energy like solar panels or anaerobic digesters that convert cow manure into energy could help power their farm — and the planet.

As their plan for continued sustainability evolves, the Fairholm Farm family also believes in taking it one day at a time.

“The best we can do is create a healthy farm business that will be there for our kids, should they want to take it over,” Erica says. “And then if not, we’ll figure it out.”

For now, Erica and Jon’s children are happy to help around the farm with little chores, like riding in the corn truck and participating in the farm camp.

As she and her family plant seeds for the future of Fairholm Farm, Erica knows she has planted her own roots right where she wants to be.

“Even on my hardest days, I never feel like there’s anything else I could love as much as I love walking out my front door and doing what I do as a dairy farmer,” she says.