GROWING UP DAIRY: Bennett maintains love for dairy farming
His favorite cow is number 185.
Jimmy Bennett, owner of Weasel Branch Farm, has 50 head of cattle on his dairy farm but he especially loves to tell the story of number 185.
“When I bought her, she would kick your hat off,” Bennett said. “I got her to keep her leg still. It’s a lot like raising a child.”
He knows most of the cows by name or number, he said.
“I can step up on the front porch and tell a certain cow’s number,” Bennett said.
When asked where number 185 was during a hot summer day this week, he pointed toward the rolling hills on his farm and said, “She’s over there in the shade.”
Bennett grew up in the dairy business.
“I’ve been in the dairy business for 40 something years…Ever since I was big enough to get under a cow,” Bennett said. “It’s all I knew. I love to milk.”
Bennett’s father started a dairy farm in Fairplay in 1957. After his father died, he stepped in and took over the operation.
He has seen a lot of changes in the industry, as dairies get larger to compete in a tight marketplace.
“Small family farms are becoming a thing of the past,” Bennett said.
As dairies grow in size, traditional family farms are relying on outside help to deal with the workload.
“Sometimes there is so much going on you have to have employees that make the farm run,” Bennett said. “The family aspect is leaving. Kids aren’t as involved as they once were.”
Bennett remembers what it was like to grow up in a dairy family.
“I’d get off the school bus and I knew what I had to do and get it done,” Bennett said.
Bennett quit the dairy business for a while in 1997.
“I quit for seven years and I felt like my heart had been cut out,” Bennett said.
He and his wife Pat started their own dairy farm just off of Hwy. 61 south of Columbia. When they moved there, Pat saw a weasel in the creek. They decided to name the farm Weasel Branch Farm.
Bennett also produces 80 acres of corn and 300 acres of hay.
Bennett said raising cattle is like raising a family.
“You raise a young calf all the way up to adulthood and when you see it come through the milk line you have a sense of accomplishment,” Bennett said.
Bennett starts milking every day at 4:30 a.m. After that he works in his corn and hay fields. He usually gets back to the house at the end of the day around seven.
“The hours are long but they can be rewarding,” Bennett said.
Farming has taught Bennett a lot about life.
“It has taught me how to be less selfish,” Bennett said.
“Working with cattle is rewarding to me,” Bennett said. “It gives a feeling of individuality.”
It has also taught him about the farming community.
“It has taught me how to work with neighbors,” Bennett said. “You have to work together with neighbors to survive.”
Dairy producers have no control over the price they receive for milk, so they find themselves teaming up to get their message across to the government and to consumers.
“We have to work together to stabilize the milk prices so people can survive,” Bennett said. “It has changed a lot in the last few years.
“A lot of the times there is not a whole lot of money in it. It means a hard life,” Bennett said. “But it is rewarding.”
To be a dairy farmer, a person has to have the passion to do it, he said.
“You have to love it to do it,” Bennett said.
The Bennetts have three children: Fancy Melton, of Washington, D.C.; Amanda Miller, of Columbia; and Adam Bennett of Bowling Green.
By Allison Hollon
allison@accvonline.com
