Dairying in the shadow of Mount Rainier

ENUMCLAW, Wash. — Washington state native, Troy Wallin, remembers milking cows when he was 8 years old, standing on wood blocks to make himself tall enough to reach the cows.

Today, decades later, at his dairy surrounded by views of fir trees and Mount Rainier, Wallin is preparing to sell his conventional dairy herd. Wallin has signed with Organic Valley to switch to organic dairy farming this spring with a herd of heifers that he has been transitioning.

“I stay in it because it’s my passion; it’s all I ever knew,” Wallin said. “My boys have been by my side, so it’s like, I don’t want to get out, but I can’t keep taking the hits.”

Wallin and his wife, Katherine, have been milking 320 conventional cows and doing custom crop work near Enumclaw, which is about an hour from Seattle. They farm alongside their adult sons, Kario and Kelyn. Their daughter, Kailey, is a photographer. She helps occasionally on the farm and operates their main farm social media page.

In addition to raising feed for their own animals on 350 acres of owned and rented ground, the Wallins also custom farm about 2,000 acres.

“The favorite part of farming here is you wake up in the morning in the summer, (and) there’s always a beautiful view,” Wallin said. “The biggest struggle is traffic, with the urban sprawl and land being bought up that’s close to our town.”

Preceding their decision to transition to organic, Wallin said for the last several years, his processor deductions, now coupled with the new Federal Milk Marketing Order producer price differential taking effect this fall, have made conventional farming financially impossible for their family. To minimize losses, he plans to have the conventional herd sold by mid-February.

Wallin said he estimates that with the switch to organic, he will be receiving about three times as much for his milk and will be reducing hauling costs by about $5,000 per month.

The paperwork to switch has been the biggest challenge to transitioning Wallin said. To reduce transition costs, they have raised some of their own organic feed on certified organic ground they have rented. His first organic heifers will be calving around the beginning of April. The family plans to eventually milk about 200 organic animals.

“It depends on cash flow for being able to sustain having the kids and an employee or two,” Wallin said.

The Wallins do much of the farm work themselves. Wallin said he likes the farm to be small enough not to be entirely dependent on outside help.

“If the help walked away or something happened, I could work all day and still go milk cows,” he said.

The Wallin family’s dairy started in 1962 with Wallin’s dad, Bob Wallin, who was an A.I. technician. When farmers could not pay their bills, he would receive heifer calves as payment.

Wallin farmed with his dad as soon as he finished high school and was operating the dairy farm full time in 1988. The pair also had a trucking business. About 27 years ago, Wallin purchased his current farm as the second farm site, and a year later his dad died, leaving Wallin solely in charge.

Most of the land the Wallin family farms is rented because land taxes are prohibitive in their area, Wallin said, making renting more attractive. Though they continue to gain parcels of land to rent, they have lost land to development. A 27-acre parcel that they used to rent until last year is being developed for 86 homes, which will be completed this summer.

Corn for silage and alfalfa are the farm’s main crops. They can get about six cuttings of alfalfa in a good year. The first cutting of alfalfa happens around April 15. The first, second and sixth cuttings are taken for haylage. The cuttings three through five are made for dry hay. In ad-dition, the Wallins have been buying 31-32 tons of alfalfa hay each month.

“We got great growing seasons,” Wallin said.

Their farm is situated on the top of a plateau. They have 8-12 inches of soil with a clay base underneath. They do not have permanent irrigation, but use tanker water and lagoon water to supplement.

This year, their area has been wet and flooded. Wallin said other farms in the area have been experiencing dikes breaking, and for those situated in valleys, devastating flooding.

Northeasterlies come about twice a year, Wallin said.

“If we get a lot of snow, it’s pretty painful,” Wallin said.

The herd is housed in open, 240-foot T-stall barns. The stalls are bedded with pressed manure solids topped with wood shavings. The five scrape alleys are uncovered, with only the main feed alleys under a roof. There are only sidewalls on the east side of the barn to protect from wind.

The farm’s manure is pumped to a digester across the road from their farm. Their dairy is one of three that sends manure to the digester.

The herd is subdivided into three herds: the dry cows, the younger cows and the mature cows. The heifers are housed at Kelyn’s farm. All the dairy barns feed into the double-9 herringbone parlor, where the cows are milked twice a day.

Previously, calves had been raised by a custom calf raiser, but with the switch to organic, the Wallins are bringing their calves home and raising them in domed calf huts.

There is solid dairy industry infrastructure in his area, Wallin said. They are one of six dairy farms locally. Three are already organic, and with the upcoming switch, the Wallins plan to be the fourth.

“We just got to get these (conventional) cows sold,” Wallin said. “(We will) take a little break, and then once the grass gets green, go into organic.”