Ariel Herrod recently became the owner of Clear Spring Creamery just over the Pennsylvania state line, in Washington County, Maryland. She runs a pasture-based dairy that processes its own milk and sells it directly to markets in and around Washington, D.C.
In taking over the farm, she realized she needed some help.
“I did not grow up on a farm. I’ve learned everything I know about farms in the last 10 years, and everything about dairy farming in the last five years,” she said.
That’s why she applied to get a mentor from a new program focused on pairing up experienced graziers with beginners. Herrod was matched with a longtime dairy farmer, Cliff Hawbaker, of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, who has more than 20 years of experience grazing with dairy cows.
“We have a defined relationship,” she said. “Unlike me wondering ‘Is my neighbor getting annoyed that I’m texting him about fencing?’”
Mentor program
Hawbaker and Herrod were one of the pilot pairs to be matched through the PA Grazing Lands Coalition Mentor Program, hosted by the Pennsylvania Grazing Lands Coalition in partnership with Pasa Sustainable Agriculture. The full program opened in late June for interested mentees to apply.
Lucas Waybright, dairy grazing project manager with Pasa and PAGLC technical adviser, said in one week, they’ve already received a handful of applications from people interested in being matched with a mentor.
The mentorship is a one-year contract. Waybright said they ask that, at minimum, the mentors and mentees visit each other’s farms at least once in that period and have monthly conversations. It can be a phone call, video conference or an email. Ideally, the mentor will also be available to answer questions at other times throughout the yearlong mentorship.
At the end of the experience, the mentee is expected to write a short summary of the partnership and meet with the administrative team to debrief.
Sounding board
Herrod started her career in agriculture as an organic inspector about a decade ago working on a an educational farm managed by Baltimore City Public Schools about a decade ago. After several years interning and working seasonally on several small farms, she became an an organic inspector in 2017.
She began living on and working part time at the farm she now runs about three years ago. She gradually took on more responsibility, taking on a full time position in November 2020. In the spring of 2021, the owners offered her an opportunity to buy the farm business out from them. That deal was finalized in June.
Though she picked up on things quickly, Herrod knew there were gaps in her knowledge on grazing. Hawbaker was recommended to her as someone well-versed in pasture management for dairy cattle. He’s also a board member for PAGLC.
What clinched the mentor relationship in her mind was the first time Hawbaker’s forthrightness when he visited her farm. She thought her pastures were a little rough, and may be healthier under different grazing management, but other visitors to the farm told her they were fine. She wasn’t sure if her judgement was off, or if her visitors were just trying to be polite.
“Cliff came out and walked around. He said ‘Ariel, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but these pastures have been overgrazed,’” she said. “I was like ‘Yes! I’ve been trying to get someone to say that to me for two years.’”
Not only did he confirm what she was thinking, he gave her some strategies to help improve her pastures, like adjusting her stocking rate and size of her paddocks.
Hawbaker began transitioning his conventional dairy herd to pasture-based around 2001. They went organic several years later.
Hawbaker said this isn’t a traditional mentorship where the mentor and mentee work alongside one another day after day, and he’s looking over her shoulder constantly. He sees himself as more of a sounding board for Herrod.
“She’s a sharp girl,” he said. “This mentorship is more of an encouraging concept. She just needs another set of eyes.”
Becoming a mentor
There are a handful of approved grazing mentors, but there is a need for more all over the state. They also need people with different livestock and types of grazing experience.
“It is easier to have someone closer to you geographically and easier to have some with a similar land base or scale,” Waybright said.
Mentors receive $750 for their participation. There aren’t strict qualifications to become a mentor, but they’d like someone who has at least several years of experience in grazing.
“Someone who is a leader in their local community,” said Susan Parry, state grassland conservationist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, who also works with the PAGLC. “Someone who wants to share their knowledge with someone else.”
The mentor doesn’t have to be an expert in all things, Waybright said. There just needs to be a willingness to share knowledge and experiences and connect the mentee to other people and resources.
“Just being available for a conversation and a question,” he said. “Maybe the mentor grazer doesn’t know everything, but they can point you in the right direction to other resources.”
Building relationships
That’s one thing Herrod has enjoyed about her mentorship with Hawbaker — building other relationships. She knew she’d need hay for winter, so he gave her some of his hay contacts. Hawbaker said he also wanted to connect her with someone he knows who is good at laying out pasture lanes.
“I’m not from this area,” she said. “I don’t know everyone. It’s having those formal relationships that lead to informal relationships.”
A good mentor knows what they know and also what they don’t know, and they don’t mind seeking help when they need it, Hawbaker said.
“You know, we need mentors as well,” he said. “I might be mentoring Ariel right now because I have a few more years of experience in pasturing, but in marketing, I need to go to some other people who have experience in marketing … It’s an attitude of learning and cooperating.”
To learn more about the grazing mentor program, visit pasafarming.org/grazing-mentorship-program/
(Reporter Rachel Wagoner can be reached at 330-337-3419 or rachel@farmanddairy.com.)
