Photo courtesy WCAX TV Richardson Farm Jerseys lounge about grazing in a field on the 450 acre farm near Woodstock. Amy Mynter Richardson, originally from Northfield along with her husband Scott and their family are the winners of the 2009 Vermont Dairy Farmers of the Year award.

The Richardson farm is a long-established Hartland Jersey farm that combines traditional values with innovative ideas for an efficient, high-producing dairy operation.

Gordon Richardson along with his sons, Scott and Reid, operate the Richardson Family Farm, a 64-cow hillside farm, in partnership with Gordon's siblings, James and Anita, who although both retired from the day-to-day operation, still help out when needed.

Amy, does the evening milking, and Gordon's wife, Patricia, handles the books and farm correspondence. Grandsons Mason Thompson and Ezra, Emory, and Elliott Richardson also pitch in to do farm chores on the 450-acre farm.

The farm was chosen for this award, which is sponsored by the New England Green Pastures Program, for its overall excellence in dairying, including outstanding herd performance and superior milk quality. Farms also are evaluated on crop production and pasture quality, environmental practices, financial management, and involvement in the agricultural community. Each of the six New England states selects a winner.

In Vermont, the award is presented annually by University of Vermont (UVM) Extension and the Vermont Dairy Industry Association (VDIA). The selection committee consists of representatives from Dairy Marketing Services, the Vermont Dairy Herd Improvement Association, VDIA, and a past Vermont Dairy Farm of the Year winner.

Glenn Rogers, a UVM Extension farm business management specialist, "In this difficult economy, when farmers are getting less in their monthly milk check than what it costs them to produce their milk, the Richardsons are asking themselves, 'What can we do to make this work?' They're sustainable because they maximize their available resources. They are innovative Vermonters, always looking to see where they can improve their operation, improve the environment, improve efficiency, and improve their family quality of life."

The judges were particularly impressed by the immaculateness of the farm and the attention that these dairy producers pay to every detail, especially herd health.

The Richardsons milk their cows on a twice daily milking schedule in a 10-cow flat parlor. Their current rolling herd average is 17,075 pounds. Milk fat production is 955 pounds and protein 666 pounds, numbers that can be attributed to selective breeding, customized feeding, and overall good herd management practices.

"Their milk quality scores put them in the top one percent of the dairy operations in Vermont," Mr. Rogers noted.

"We spend money on milk quality," Reid Richardson says. "That's our unspoken mantra. We don't necessarily want to be the highest Vermont milk producers, but we want to be up there."

The cows are housed in a tworow free-stall barn with cow mattresses, energy-free waterers, slant-bar feed fence, compact fluorescent lights, and "Jersey" barriers to form a feed bunk. A six-foot high curtain covers the entire back wall. The barn is shed-style, with the south side open year-round at a covered feed alley. Cows are bedded with kiln-dried sawdust.

Milking cows are fed a total mixed ration-style ration of baleage (haylage in bales) and a complete formula mash grain. Grain also is fed in the milking parlor.

They hay 105 acres of owned and rented land with an average yield per acre of five tons of baleage. Fifteen years ago they switched to round silage bales instead of dry hay, which they find results in a higher quality crop.

Despite the rainy weather, the Richardsons have kept on schedule with cutting their hay this year. They delayed mowing one neighbor's field so that bobolinks, a native songbird, could complete nesting.

The farm, a designated Vermont Century Farm, has been in family since 1905, when grandfather James Richardson purchased the property, although the family knows that the land's farm history goes back at least another 100 years before that.

Around 1925, he built a new sugarhouse on the property, continuing to use horses to gather sap. The sugarhouse has since been replaced by Floyd's sons, James and Gordon.

Today the Richardsons manage a sizeable sugarbush using vacuum pipeline. They bought their first reverse osmosis system this year with the help of a U.S. Department of Agriculture energy efficiency grant that covered 25 percent of the system's cost. They also continue to use their piggyback evaporator, a double-decker flue pan they developed and patented in the 1980s to reduce boiling time in the sugarhouse.

This past season the farm produced 3,075 gallons of maple syrup from 4,400 taps.

In addition to the sugaring operation, the Richardsons have a split rail fencing business that James and Gordon started in 1963 as a way to add to the farm's income

Today Reid and Scott operate that business, using lumber harvested on the farm and other farms for posts and fence rails. Reid also has a sideline business, Reid Richardson Woodturning in Woodstock, producing high-quality hardwood bowls, utensils, and jewelry.

Amy is a Northeast Organic Farming Association Farm to School Community Mentor for Windsor County. The program is designed to promote interaction between farms and schools and communities, and foster a better understanding of agriculture among non-farmers.

"The Richardson Family Farm epitomizes the Green Pastures Program," Mr. Rogers concluded. "In addition to producing high-quality milk, cows, crops, and ancillary agricultural products, these farmers are leaders in the community and state, helping to educate others about agriculture. They value family and everyone's contribution to the farm and are able to balance everything to maintain the quality of life farming can provide."