It’s not unusual to hear about dairy farms around the country struggling due to inflation, supply chain challenges, and drought, but one local farm is defying the trend and has begun a large-scale expansion project that will be finished early next year.
Bilow Farms, a family-run dairy farm on County Route 24 near Malone, is in the middle of a $25 million expansion project that will feature a rotary milking equipment capable of handling 100 cows at once, as well as two new buildings the length of five football fields. The farm owners have also teamed with Rev LNG, a business that will spend $20 million in converting methane gas produced by cow poo into renewable natural gas, bringing the overall project cost to $45 million. During facility visits, visitors will be able to see the activities from an observation area.
Vincent and Trudy Bilow operate the farm; their son Andrew works full-time on the farm, while Jessica Kelley maintains the books and performs community outreach for the farm in her free and vacation time. She is a full-time fourth-grade teacher at St. Joseph’s Elementary School.
“We’re going to be cutting-edge. We’ll also have huge groups of farmers come in to view the facilities. “It’s going to be a tourism destination for Northern New York,” Vincent said, adding that the project’s manure gas component would lessen the farm’s carbon impact. “And that is what today’s customers want to hear. It’s beneficial to the environment.”
The Bilows were able to get the project off the ground in April after two years of preparation and with the support of a loan from Farm Credit East.
“It probably won’t be finished until late 2023 or early 2024.” “There’s a lot to it,” Vincent said. “We’re doing it all by ourselves.” We don’t have any funding for this. We don’t have any outside investors.”
The rotational milking parlour, which will help the farm function more effectively with its staff, is the Bilows’ project’s focal point.
“Once that is operational, our objective is to milk 750 cows each hour.” “It’s built up for the efficiency of what we’re doing, and that comes back to labour,” Andrew said. While being milked, the cows hop onto the parlour and ride it around. They will depart it and return to their group to eat and relax after they have completed their journey.
“It’s like riding a merry-go-round.” It travels in a circle,” Jessica continued, noting that the middle structure will also contain the dairy farm’s main office as well as the public viewing area.
“We’ll start milking sometime in the spring of 2023,” Vincent said, adding that the main farm office and observation area will be directly in front of the rotary milker, giving the farm a fresh appearance. “Even though it’s a dairy farm, it won’t seem like a dairy farm from the outside.” “We place a high value on our image.”
We are one big family.
The land on which the farms exist was first bought by Vincent Bilow’s grandpa in 1942, and subsequently by his father in 1946, when the dairy farm bloomed and had around 20 cows at the time. When Vincent and his wife Trudy purchased the farm from his father in 1988, it had around 80 cows.
Dairy farming has been a passion for both father and son through the years as a family livelihood.
“It’s in our DNA,” Vincent said.
“When you do something and grow up with it, that’s what you do,” Andrew, who looks after the cows and calves all day, said. “When I was younger, I was always in the barn taking care of the calves, and eventually it progressed to heifers and cows.”
Jessica said that she didn’t do much work for the farm as a child, but she began helping out at the office in 2015. One of her key goals these days is to undertake community outreach and bring in additional field excursions to educate the community, particularly kids.
“We’re strong on community outreach because everyone knows someone who owned a farm at some time,” she said. “Now, when you ask a child, ‘Have you ever been on a farm?’ they say ‘No.’ There’s such a chasm today that youngsters don’t go to farms, have never been to farms, and have no idea what goes on on farms.”
One interesting aspect of the dairy farm is the differences in how the cows live on a daily basis. Prior to 1999, Bilow Farm employed tie stalls, a kind of dairy housing in which cows are tied to their stall. The farm has subsequently switched to a freestall housing arrangement, which gives dairy cows a nice space to lay down and rest.
The farm increased in size as well, and in 2015, the Bilows purchased a farm in Oriskany Falls, bringing the total number of cows to about 4,000, with around half of them at the Malone site. Vincent said that after the new barns are finished, all of the cows from the previous site would be relocated to Malone.
“Right now, we’re milking roughly 800 cows at that place, but there are more.” “All those cows are going to come here,” Vincent said. “For labour efficiency, we want to bring everything back home (to Malone).”
Vincent plans to create roughly 80 new employment to the local dairy farm after the project is completed and all of the cows are in place.
“Our objective is to generate barn employment that are 40-ish hours per week.” “We’re attempting to generate well-paying positions, but people don’t have to work 60-70 hours each week,” he said.
Being a family business is beneficial because it keeps the family together, and although it is not always flawless, the family takes great satisfaction in being a close-knit unit.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Trudy replied. “People don’t know that, despite its size, it is still a family farm.”
“I look back at where I began and how far I’ve come, and I’m quite proud of myself.” It makes me happy. “I’m hoping that our grandchildren and granddaughters will help out on the farm,” Vincent remarked. “It’s a feeling of accomplishment. I’m not sure where the future will take me, but this is where I’m heading right now.”
“It has its difficulties, but it also has its advantages.” At the end of the day, we’re still a family,” Andrew said, adding that he’d prefer to keep the family line going by including his daughter. “I’d like to believe she’ll become engaged with the farm, but she’s just five years old.”
“It also goes back to what others have said about this being a huge farm and not a family farm, but it truly is a family farm,” Jessica said. So far, she has said that her eldest son is the most interested, and that her children like hanging out with the calves at the farm during the summer.
Vincent said that having a farm this large makes it more difficult for his grandchildren to accomplish what his children did while growing up on the farm, owing to the increasing number of equipment.
Trudy said that when Andrew was younger, he would say, “I’m going to the barn with dad,” and she wouldn’t have to worry about it. That is no longer the case.
“They could go inside the smaller barn before, but now we have machinery operating.” “Safety is always a top priority for us,” Vincent added.
When the project is finished, perhaps a link will be established between the farm and its potential to educate both young and elderly not just about farm life, but about all facets of a contemporary farm.
“I believe it will make me proud to know that some of the kids, and even some of the adults that stop by, will go home and have a greater appreciation of what we do and how well we care for our animals,” Vincent said. “At Bilow Farm, our philosophy is that cows come first.” It is critical that we treat our creatures with respect.”
“People who have never been on a farm simply don’t know,” Trudy said, before describing an incident that exemplified the lack of information. She said that several city kids were visiting the farm and that she was in charge of fixing breakfast.
“When our daughter remarked, ‘Oh, wait till you sample the bacon we have here,’ one of the kids answered, ‘No, I’m not eating it, it’s not from a shop.’ ‘Where do you believe the milk comes from?’ I inquired.
The project represents another chapter in the Bilow family’s dairy farm, one that will continue to grow long after the project is completed.
“I’ve only ever done this.” “We wouldn’t be doing this unless we enjoyed it,” Vincent said. “It’s still a long way from being finished.” I simply look at it as something we do. We just want to provide the customer with a decent, healthy product.”
