Ferland Farm
Practical approach
Third-generation farmer Dennis Ferland is a realist. He juggles several different side businesses along with his dairy farm to balance out unpredictable milk prices. He sells hay and other feed to fellow farmers, manages a storage facility and some rental properties. He also tries to live by lessons his father taught him: “My dad was very cautious and tried to plan for every bad possibility. I guess I picked up that habit from him. If we have a good year, I make sure we invest back into the farm.”
Value of farming
A lifelong farmer, Dennis wishes he could communicate to the public what dairy farming is all about. He would share, he says, “the farmers’ commitment to their work, their contributions to the community, how you milk a cow, what it takes to run a dairy farm, and most important of all, what might happen if these farms go away.”
Care for the earth
Dennis believes farmers are underestimated for their care of the environment. Farmers are great examples of the Yankee ingenuity demonstrated by the old saying: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!” At Ferland Farm, Dennis practices this approach every day from the spent local craft brewery grain that he recycles into his cows’ feed mix, to the care he takes to maintain and repair his equipment. “There is nobody better at recycling and reusing everything than farmers,” he says. “It’s in our nature to be friendly to the environment and I think people could learn a lot from our business.”