For Vermont Cheesemakers, Smaller Is Better

Woodstock — Handing out samples of Cabot cheddar during the Billings Farm and Museum’s Cheese and Dairy Celebration over the holiday weekend, Romeo Bilodeau recalled milking hundreds of cows in the early 1970s for Sprague Farm in Brookfield, one of some 6,000 dairy operations then dotting the Vermont landscape.

By 2011, the number of farms in the state slipped below 1,000 amid sweeping changes in distribution, prices and market competition for milk in other states, as well as the temptation to dig out of debt by selling farmland to developers.

“The young people coming into the business, they’ve seen their fathers work their buns off and not get ahead,” said Bilodeau, now a member of the Cabot cooperative’s Road Show staff. “And they just don’t want to do it.”

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