Teaching new graziers—farmers who graze cows—is the foundation of realizing those benefits, Tomandl adds. Most land-grant agriculture programs focus on confinement systems, given their prevalence in the industry, so the DGA is one of the few sources that shares pasture-raised dairy skills.
No Shortage of New Graziers
Apprentices in the DGA come from all walks of life, says Jessica Matthews, who manages the program. A graduate herself, she came to the program from the social work field. Some participants are already working in dairy but want to deepen their knowledge and commitment to a grazing approach.
“There tend to be waves of folks that are looking for a second career option, or are maybe burning out in what their chosen profession was, and are interested in doing something that’s closer to working with their hands or working with the land,” Matthews says.
The DGA also recently launched a Spanish-language version of the program, in recognition that over half of the country’s dairy workforce are immigrants, many of them Spanish-speaking. Their participation in the program, let alone in the dairy industry as a whole, might be impacted by immigration policies under the new Trump administration, although it’s too early to know for sure.
Interest in the program is strong: The DGA has 59 apprentices and 120 active apprentice candidates. And with 215 approved mentors, there’s capacity to absorb even more would-be graziers.
Many apprentices find the program through online searches rather than traditional agricultural networks. Amber Donaldson had been interested in farming since formative childhood vacations to her grandmother’s farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania, and was raising chickens and rabbits on her own homestead while working day jobs in food service. She stumbled across the DGA website when looking up opportunities for first-generation dairy farmers and has since apprenticed with two Pennsylvania pasture-based operations.
Her first apprenticeship, with mentor grazier Jeff Biddle at Bear Meadows Farm, threw her into a demanding daily routine. Without any previous dairy experience, she was immediately helping milk up to 50 cows a day, bottle-feeding baby calves, and wrestling with wet bales of feed hay in the mid-Atlantic winter. At the same time, she was taking online classes through the Managed Grazing Innovation Center, the program’s academic component, covering topics like agricultural ecology and soil health.
Despite the hard work and often 16-hour days, she fell in love with the dairy life. “It was the most rewarding experience—every day just waking up, coming outside, and working with cows was the best day ever,” Donaldson says. “Before I started working, I kind of thought my approach toward cows and wanting to have that relationship was naive and unrealistic. But I’ve gotten to see that there are farmers out there that value a really personal relationship with each animal.”
After 18 months at Bear Meadows, Donaldson decided to broaden her experience by working with Dave and Terry Rice of Clover Creek Cheese Cellar. She learned a different approach to rotational grazing, as well as the basics of cheesemaking, and now hopes to use what she’s learned to start a dairy business of her own.
Milking the Market
Given the current state of the U.S. commodity dairy industry, where profit margins for milk have been slim or even negative for many years, apprentice graziers need to learn more than just how to raise cows. Mentors help their mentees identify more sustainable paths to running a dairy business, whether through creating value-added products like Clover Creek cheese or selling into the specialty organic market, as Ben Wagner does.
Jack Schouweiler, deep in the milking parlor at Ben Wagner’s farm. (Photo courtesy of Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship)
The DGA is supporting those explorations by building a sustainable market for pasture-fed milk, says Tomandl. The organization recently launched a new effort, the Dairy Grazing Alliance, that brings together more than 35 farmers, consumer brands, government agencies, and financial institutions to strengthen the pastured-dairy supply chain. Tomandl envisions creating hubs of small farms, each managed by a graduate of the DGA, that could provide nationally distributed milk brands with the volume they require.
Another initiative, a nearly $4.8 million study backed by the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities, aims to help mentors and apprentices communicate the environmental value of their milk. The research uses a sonar system called PaddockTrac, pulled over the fields by an all-terrain vehicle, to measure the growth of grass in pastures and correlate it with carbon sequestration and other ecosystem benefits. Graziers can then take the data to potential milk buyers.
The work has immediate on-farm benefits as well, says Tomandl. “The farmer gets management data on how this farm is growing.” The apprentice benefits too, with “an accelerated learning curve on how these grazing wedges are set up and how to better manage the grass on the dairy. It goes hand in hand.” Plus, participating mentors receive a stipend to help pay apprentice wages.
It’s unclear how the research, slated to continue through 2028, might be impacted by the Trump administration. Its funding was authorized by former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, not earmarked by Congress. Brooke Rollins, Trump’s nominee to head the USDA, has denied the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions are planet-heating pollutants.
“While we cannot predict how a new administration might approach this initiative, we believe in maintaining its momentum,” says Aaron Shier, government relations director for the National Farmers Union, which represents more than 200,000 farms and ranches across the country. Continuity across administrations, he adds, means farmers can see their projects through to completion, enabling them to learn from the results and adapt to new situations.
Earning the Trust
Meanwhile, the DGA wants to ensure that existing grazing operations aren’t lost to development or snapped up by large confinement dairies. The average age of a U.S. farmer is 58, and many graziers don’t have family members willing to continue their operations. Apprentices with deep skills and existing relationships with farmers, Matthews says, are perfectly positioned to fill that gap. About a third of the program’s graduates to date have either taken over the farm on which they apprenticed or are working toward that goal.
“Every day just waking up, coming outside, and working with cows was the best day ever.”
Even under the best of circumstances, admits Matthews, it can be challenging for long-time farmers to give up their work. “If they stand at the same place every single day to load a bailer, the concrete has an imprint of the boots that they wear,” she says. “They’re so intricately involved in farming that the mental shift to not farm anymore is really daunting.” To help prepare retiring farmers and apprentices, the DGA recently received another USDA grant to develop best practices for facilitating farm transfers.
Ben Wagner feels a touch of that challenge as he grapples with the changeover of his Minnesota farm to his apprentice Schouweiler. He’s watched as the younger man has added new equipment and pursued new ways of doing things, and he’s still getting used to his new schedule after Schouweiler took over milking duties.
And though the finances of the gradual transfer aren’t as lucrative as a quick sale to an outside investor, Wagner wouldn’t have it any other way. After 20 years of careful pasturing, he’s seen the farm’s soil grow softer and richer, and he’s watched as gophers and earthworms have returned to the land. “Somebody else would come in here with big four-wheel drives and destroy everything, all the soil and all that we’ve build up on it, in three years,” he says.
Instead, Wagner trusts that Schouweiler will continue his legacy of organic, pasture-raised dairy and preserve the soil. He’s grateful for the opportunity to keep his farm in the hands of someone with the same love of the land.
“I would do it over again in a heartbeat, because you see the look on his face,” Wagner says. “There’s a peace, an inner peace, in knowing that somebody’s dream came true. And he’s living the dream.”
