Contact Ken

“If you're going to farm anywhere, you've got to have good land,” says Ken Leach, 35, as he looks at a field of 10-foot-tall corn. “And this is good land.”

The valley’s deep soils are naturally fertile because of the underlying limestone and marble of the Taconic Mountain Range; as a result, the topsoil is naturally sweet, favoring grasses, corn and other crops. And the valley is flat, sheltered, and a bit warmer than northern Vermont or the mountain lands just to the east.

Two other factors have helped keep the Mettowee Valley in farming, one being the deeply personal commitment of local people to agriculture and the other the Vermont Land Trust and allied organizations, which have helped stabilize the land base.

Leach milks some 65 cows. Every farm in the valley has a different economic strategy, and his is to cut costs, juggle various assets, and do as much of his own farm work as possible. He leases land to a neighboring farmer to grow corn, then buys back the corn as silage – that way he doesn't have to invest thousands of dollars in corn-processing machinery. He’s also growing sweet corn to sell to nearby farm stands.

Leach is committed to dairying for good reasons.

“Where else do you get five-figure cash-flow, once or twice a month?” he asks.