HATFIELD — Darryl Williams is a rich man by many metrics. He owns a small dairy farm that covers almost 200 acres of land that has been in his family consecutively since 1661, and he is watching the next generations grow up as his nine young grandchildren get dirty around the farm.

On his 13-generation farm, named Luther Belden after his grandfather, are some 350 animals — a couple sheep, some chickens, but primarily the 180 cows he raises with a team of three robots.

But sustaining this whole operation and lifestyle as a small dairy farmer, while it has made a rich life for Williams and his wife, Lucinda, is never without its challenges.

“It’s always a challenge,” he said, citing the demands of rising costs and difficulty finding workers.

But in a Monday afternoon tour of his farm with Ashley Randle, commissioner of the state’s Department of Agricultural Resources, Williams thanked the state for its role in alleviating those conditions and keeping the 364-year-old farm alive by offering tax incentives and timely grant distributions over his years as a farmer.

The visit to the Hatfield farm was Randle’s third stop in a swing through western Massachusetts on Monday to kick off National Dairy Month, an annual recognition of the farms that provide the state and region with fresh milk and dairy products. She began the day further west at two Sheffield Farms in Berkshire County.

“It’s really an opportunity to celebrate our state’s 95 dairy farms, and June Dairy Month is a national celebration,” said Randle, who grew up on a fifth-generation dairy farm in Deerfield.

Those farms contribute more than $61 million to the local economy, according to MDAR, with most of them based in this region. They produce more than 20 million gallons of fresh, nutritious, and wholesome milk each year, some of which are used to make dairy products like milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, and ice cream, contributing to a sustainable local food system.

“But it’s also an opportunity for us here in Massachusetts to recognize our farmers across the state — to meet with the farms, understand what the challenges are that they’re facing, how we can support them, and also see firsthand how our different grant programs have been able to help on the farms,” she said.

Williams gave Randle and a handful of high school students with the state’s Agricultural Youth Council a guided tour of the Luther Belden Farm operation. State Sen. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton, also joined the tour.

Williams pointed out some of the resources on his agricultural campus, including barns, hutches for calves, and an anaerobic methane digester that produces up to 300 kilowatts of energy and has powered his barn since 2019.

At one point he cut his sentence short and said, “I can’t go further without saying thank you to the state of Massachusetts for being a partner.”

Among the state programs that keep Williams afloat is the dairy tax credit program, which allows farmers up to $8 million in savings on income tax. Randle called the program “very unique in Massachusetts.”

“The tax credit is huge, and the grant program through the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources has been phenomenal,” said Williams, adding that the half-million the state has contributed over the past few decades has helped the farm survive.

The two farms in Sheffield Randle visited — Pine Island Farm and Maple Shade Farm — are part of the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) program, which allows farmers to permanently protect their land and ensure it remains in agricultural production for future generations of farmers.

Williams said this allows the state’s farmland to remain affordable in Massachusetts, which is among the most expensive places to buy a farm in the country, he explained. Luther Belden joined the APR program in 1987.

“To me it’s a vital thing,” said Williams. “We believe that this land should be farmed. I mean, everybody should have houses, but we shouldn’t be able to put houses on (farm) land that’s some of the best in the world.”

Challenges

Williams discussed some of the challenges farmers face, including labor shortages, the high price of land, and climate issues such as droughts, floods and frost.

Some challenges are peculiar to Williams as a dairy farmer in Massachusetts. Many of the goods and services on the farm need to be bought out of state, including veterinarians and equipment, since these are limited in the region.

“Where we farm in Massachusetts — in all of Massachusetts, it’s very expensive compared to some of the other areas in the country. And I say that not to complain, it’s just the way it is.”

He noted that in larger states there are more dealers for equipment and services, and more competition.

“Here, I have to call a dealer from Connecticut when I’ve got an issue,” he said. “That’s an hour and a half, maybe two hours drive for one of their techs to come out here. It’s not like it’s just right down the road.”

To showcase the effects of inflation over the past century, Williams pointed out a barn on his property that was built in 1909 for $19,000. He turned around and pointed to his new state-of-the-art barn put up in the past decade that cost half a million, with $100,000 in aid from the state.

That contribution also gave him a little more money to invest in his fleet of three robots that milk the cows while collecting a large amount of data on the animals that is valuable for farmers. These are one of the innovations that is carrying Luther Belden into the 21st century.

Williams and his wife explained how the robots, which cost $200,000 each, use lasers to identify cows and remember their udder changes, calculate an average of the last three milkings, and detect when a cow is potentially sick.

The robots can also calculate the steps the cows take in a day, and provide information used for breeding and culling.

“Our robots help us as far as our labor, and it gives our labor flexibility,” he said. “We would hire high school or college-aged kids to help milk cows. So that would take two to three hours. But as we got a little bit bigger and it took longer, it was harder to find people to do that.”

While some of these students are still employed on occasion by the farm, Williams said it is beneficial for them to have more flexibility with their hours due to the help he gets from his machines.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.