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Organic Dairy and Rotational Grazing
A Family Affair

The Stoller Family Farm consists of Scott and Charlene Stoller and their 7 children. They operate a 250 acre certified organic dairy farm raising corn, soybeans, wheat, barley and alfalfa. They also have goats, chickens, donkeys and two dogs. They milk 90 Holsteins and market all of their milk through Organic Valley Co-op.

The Stollers are a brilliant example of farming with nature instead of against it. They strive to pass along the homestead by leaving the land better than they found it and also are teaching these important concepts to their children. Their commitment to conservation has always been strong, but they began to work with the NRCS and Wayne SWCD offices in 1999; just two years after Scott lost his right arm in a baler accident.

They initially started working with our agency by transitioning from conventional to an intensive grazing system. They currently manage about 50 acres of permanent pasture divided into 11 paddocks for grazing to reduce mechanical harvesting and the need for manure spreading. They have utilized the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and State Cost Share Pollution Abatement funds to complete a number of best management practices such as:
• Completing 3 spring developments
• Development of a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) through EQIP
• Constructing a 250,000 gallon manure storage structure
• Installing a 1400 ft. heavy use cattle access lane
• Implementing stream exclusion by fencing cattle out
• Practicing Woodland management
• Adding 7.5 acres of riparian buffers with ~3,700 trees through Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
• Constructing 6 Grassed waterways for a total of 6,200 linear feet (4 on his own and 2 through CRP)

They have hosted numerous field days, tours and pasture walks for other producers as well as for NRCS, OSU Extension, ODNR, Farm Bureau, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center and their local co-op. Scott commented, “We’ve been using EQIP cost share programs pretty much since they first became available.  The NRCS people were excellent to work with, and the programs make things we wanted to do economically feasible. We’re not done yet. We’re trying to improve daily and weekly.”

Media Contact: Christina Coulon, Ohio

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Meet the Stollers (PDF; 230 KB)

 

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