Eight generations. 266 years. One of the oldest dairies in the country. No matter how you quantify it, the legacy of Long Green Farms is an impressive one. It’s the type of stewardship and long-term vision you can’t deny, even if you never intended to be the next generation to carry it on.
That’s the story for Alice and Caleb Crothers, the current owners and managers of the 150-cow dairy in Rising Sun, Md. As the third son on a small dairy, Caleb had originally set his sights on sports and a career apart from the farm.
He met Alice in college, and the couple laid down their own roots in Knoxville, Tenn. They were in the thick of successful careers with two kids under 2 years old when the call came. Caleb’s dad was diagnosed with cancer, and it was Caleb and Alice who were asked to come home.
“Neither of us had really thought about it,” Alice says. “That was just not the place in life that we were. We were both very happy in our careers, but I don’t think that things in life are accidents.”
Caleb took leave from work to help take care of his dad and the farm, and never truly went back to his career. The family eventually moved to Maryland, and it didn’t take long for Alice to appreciate the well-built legacy she had married into.
“I think about this with the love I have for my children and what I want for them,” she says. “First and foremost, it has to be a financially desirable life. Second, it has to be an operationally desirable life.”
From her “outside” perspective, Alice credits a few important strategies that have carried the farm through eight generations.
“The family is financially conservative; they avoid debt at all costs,” she says. On top of that, each transition has followed a consistent plan, so expectations have remained clear over time.
Naturally, conservation practices are key to long-standing success, and Alice says those practices have gone hand in hand with the low-to-no debt financial structure of the farm.
“We’ve found a way for sustainability conservation efforts to benefit the farm, both financially and operationally,” she says. “A lot of these practices pay for themselves: they’ve been partnerships or collaborations that we’ve been paid for, and they’ve improved our bottom line.”
The farm’s sand separator is one example of very tangible time and money savings, combined with external support for the initial investment.
“We used EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) dollars to do the install,” Alice says. “We did have to invest our own dollars as well, but what do we get in exchange? For one, before the separator, we were paying someone to truck sand to us and paying for the sand. We’re no longer at the mercy of the trucker’s schedule and no longer purchasing sand. My husband will tell you he’s seen an improvement in herd health just by having access to the sand when we need it.”
The family is also in the process of installing a methane digester resulting from a grant from the state of Maryland. At full capacity, it will eliminate all of the electrical expenses for the farm. Other profitable conservation practices for the farm include a stream restoration project in partnership with a restoration group, no-till planting and cover crops and intentional engagement with the local community.
Engagement with the community is one space Alice has really made her own. Her non-farm background gives her the perspective to answer the questions that she, herself, asked before life brought her family to the farm.
She tells both rural and urban audiences: “The two most valuable traded commodities are time and money. Preserve means to take it to the next generation, to keep it safe. You’re conserving, you’re saving, you’re going to save time and money. Sustainability is essentially the exact same thing: taking care of and protecting.”
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