The Brattleboro Agricultural Committee presented a united front at Wednesday night's Retreat Farm meeting, stating that above all, they don't want to lose another working farm. The Windham Foundation, which purchased the Retreat Farm in 2001, would like to convert it to a cheese manufacturing facility to supplement production at their Grafton plant. Although the Foundation says it would like to continue to see the land cultivated, they don't intend to do it themselves. They also plan to eliminate the dairy herd.
Committee members had a number of concerns about the planned conversion of the Retreat Farm. Stu Thurber described the farm as the "crown jewel" of Brattleboro agriculture, and an important symbolic emblem of Vermont farming in general. He said they had fought the loss of the farm before, when the farm first came "under the gun" in 2000. At that time, Retreat Healthcare had owned the farm and had floated the ideas of converting it first to a middle school, then to an assisted living facility. The solution at the time was to facilitate the purchase of the farm by the Windham Foundation which has owned it since.
Steve Morse, President and CEO of the Windham Foundation, said that his organization runs four for-profit businesses under the auspices of the non-profit, including Grafton Cheese. He said they evaluate their business operations according to a dual bottom line, which includes land and historic conservation as well as monetary profit. While the Grafton Village Cheese operation has been very successful with 8-12% annual growth, the Retreat Farm, according to Mr. Morse, has not, despite almost a million dollars in capital improvements and equipment.
Morse said the Retreat Farm's annual losses, which have totaled $1.1 million over 5 years, are unacceptable. It was his position that the farm can better serve Vermont agriculture by making cheese out of Vermont milk than by keeping an unprofitable dairy herd. He concluded by saying that the conversion of Retreat Farm serves the Windham Foundation financially while continuing to abide by the foundation's mission of historic preservation.
Morse also explained the reasons the Retreat Farm was chosen as the most desirable location for Grafton Cheese. It's on municipal sewer and water, which Morse said was a necessity. The site is attractive, historic, and on a tourist route. And, they already own it.
Morse said, more than once, that the Agricultural Committee could best serve them by helping them 'creatively' solve the problem of how to keep the arable land under some kind of cultivation. He suggested that maybe a local farmer would want to come in, farm the land, and truck out the crop at the end of the season. Stu Thurber replied that "the days when you could get someone to farm your land for free are over."
Committee chair Jay Bailey said that the committee's position is that they would like to support the idea of a cheese plant, but felt that the loss of the cows was a blow to local agriculture. Locally, he said, we're steadily losing working farms. To lose such an important farm, he said, would have a negative ripple effect on other farms nearby. For instance, he said, there are agricultural services such as feed and equipment suppliers which depend on economies of scale to remain in business here. If the Retreat Farm ceases dairy farming, that's one less farm to support the local agricultural industry.
In response to Morse's assertion that local dairy farmers would benefit from milk sales, several farmers pointed out that since all milk is pooled, that is, collected by one large distributor such as Agrimark, there is no benefit to local farmers by having a cheese factory in town.
Stu Thurber suggested that the cheese factory pay a premium to local farmers for their milk, provided it met their standards. Morse said that Grafton Cheese uses Jersey milk and that most Brattleboro farmers have Holsteins. He said that they do pay a premium for their milk but that they currently buy more from up north because Brattleboro milk suppliers don't have the ratio of fat and protein they're looking for.
Someone else mentioned that Shelburne Farm has both cows and a factory. Morse said that was true, but that at the Retreat, the field wasn't adjacent to the barn and that was a problem. A member of the public said that with rising fuel prices, it might make more sense to use local milk than to truck it in. Morse said the factory will use 15 million pounds of milk a year, which is much more than the 2 million pounds the Retreat Farm produces annually. He concluded that even if there was enough land at the farm to have cows and a factory, that it would still be a "losing proposition."
A member of the public suggested that the Windham Foundation was hurting the Retreat Farm's profitability by the way they were operating and accounting for it, saying that the rent of $10,000 a month seemed excessive, that the farm could be taking a tax deduction as a working farm, and that their cheese, at $8 a pound retail, should be making money. He also pointed out that other foundation-run operations such as the Retreat Farm were allowed to operate at a loss in light of compensating factors such as the operation's historic or cultural significance.
At the conclusion of the meeting, both Stu Thurber and chair Jay Bailey expressed strong reservations. Thurber recommended the formation of an advisory board to work on the Retreat Farm issue and how to keep it working in agriculture. Bailey reiterated his desire to support the project but said that he hoped the Windham Foundation would be open to different solutions. The committee will be meeting with the Windham Foundation in the next couple weeks to try to hammer out a solution acceptable to all.
The new cheese factory, if the project goes through, would consist of a 28,000 square foot facility to be placed where the cow barn is now. It's expected to cost roughly $6,000,000 to build, a portion of which would be financed through a bank loan. It would employ 25 people and produce 1.5 million pounds of artisanal cheese a year. But for right now, there is still work to do before the Agricultural Committee — and local farmers — are ready to sign on.
Citizen journalist Spoon Agave contributed to this story.