Ron and Adam Holter, a father-son team, run their family’s sixth-generation dairy farm in Jefferson, Maryland. When Ron’s father and uncle ran the farm, it was a confinement operation, milking 100 cows entirely indoors. When Ron took over in the mid-1990s, he wanted to do things differently. Since then, the cows at Holterholm Farm have been out on almost 300 acres of pasture. Unlike most dairy farms, which remove calves from their mothers and feed them formula, Holterholm has a herd of nurse cows who raise and nurse babies each year. They only milk once per day, which makes life easier for the cows as well as for Ron and Adam. This high standard of care and 100% grass diet allows the Holters to sell their farm’s milk to Organic Valley’s Grassmilk line, which is available in major grocery stores. The area around Holterholm Farm once had many dairy farms, but only Ron and Adam’s remains, which they attribute to their decision to transition from a confinement operation to a more humane pastured, grass-fed operation.

“I know firsthand the difficulty both financially and socially in transitioning from a confinement animal system to a regenerative farming system, having transitioned our farm in 1996,” said Ron Holter of Holterholm Farms. “Financially there is often a lag time from the beginning of what can be an expensive transition to eventually achieving an improved income while the land heals and the livestock become accustomed to a healthier, happier lifestyle. Transitional funds like those provided in the Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act would be a blessing to farmers attempting to move to more regenerative, livestock friendly systems.”   

Paula and Dale Boles took over Dale’s family farm in Granite Falls, North Carolina. They entered into a contract to raise chickens for Tyson Foods in 2002, taking on $300,000 in debt to build the CAFO warehouses. Originally, they expected robust paychecks that would enable them to live comfortably and pay off the loan within 10 years, but it didn’t go that way. The paychecks got smaller and smaller, and Tyson repeatedly asked the Boleses for more expensive investments in their infrastructure. In 2015, after more than a decade in the chicken business, Paula and Dale canceled their contract and raised their last flock of chickens. Determined to use the CAFO barns they invested so much money into, they began converting the barns into greenhouses. Throughout the transition process, the Boleses hobbled together grant funds from a variety of groups, including the ASPCA. Dale’s construction skills came in handy – he took on complex projects like turning an old refrigerator into a seed germinator. Now, the Boleses grow vegetables, microgreens, hemp and flowers that they sell locally in North Carolina.

“We took on over $400,000 in debt to become contract chicken farmers and came close to foreclosure when we decided to get out of industrial animal agriculture. When we cancelled our contract, the integrator came out to our farm, picked up their $20 sign and drove away without another thought,” said Paula Boles, co-owner of JB Farms. “We know too many farmers have similar stories of being exploited by integrators and left with few options to keep their farms going. The Industrial Agriculture Conversion Act would help support farmers like us across the country who want to transition to more sustainable and economically viable farming systems.”