Farmer blog informs people about farm life

For more than 100 years, the Gilmer family has been farming in the Shiloh community in Lamar County, Alabama. In 1951, my father, Gray Gilmer, returned home to the farm after years of service in the Tennessee Valley Authority and the United States Fidelity & Guaranty Insurance. He ran a diversified family farm, but the dairy operation quickly became his main focus.

I returned to the farm after graduating from college, and assumed ownership and management, once my father retired. My wife, Lin, works as the farm treasurer. Like me, my son, Will, returned to live and work on the farm once he graduated from college. Today, Will’s a partner and shares in the operation's day-to-day management responsibilities. Together we milk more than 220 Holsteins on more than 500 acres of land.

We don't just work the land – we live on it, too. We work to protect our soil and water to provide a good home for our cows and for ourselves. We enjoy providing great scenery for our neighbors as they drive by the farm. By using erosion control techniques such as no-till cropping, residue management, and buffer strips, we maximize the soil's ability to produce quality pasture and forages year after year.

We also work hard to manage our dairy waste. We currently have a glass-fused steel storage tank that holds about 300,000 gallons of manure. This system allows us to store waste for up to 120 days. It's environmentally friendly and allows us to spread the waste on our land during optimal weather to help the plants grow, while storing the waste during the winter months. We follow a NRCS-developed Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan that allows us to use the stored waste as fertilizer, thereby decreasing our need for commercially manufactured fertilizers.

In addition to our "green" efforts, we use technology via our Web site www.gilmerdairyfarm.com to educate and inform consumers. Will manages an "Edopt-a-Cow" web-based program designed to create and build interest in agriculture by allowing individuals or classrooms to track a cow's production and health over a period of time. The program was designed for teachers to incorporate it into multiple parts of their curriculum. Will also publishes a blog so that consumers can learn about life on the farm from a farmer's perspective. As Will says, we can reach a much larger audience on the Internet than we ever could through farm tours. The Web site and blog allow us to get our story out to people all over the world, and our customers can log on to see what’s happening 24 hours a day.

It’s important for us to continue using technologies that help us best care for our environment, our cows, and our customers. Through our on-farm management practices and our online presence, we can educate consumers about the safe, healthy and wholesome products we produce.