From Saxelby Cheesemongers, October 18, 2024
Do you know what your great-great-great-great-grandparents did for work? Seth Leach at Woodlawn Farm does. Seven generations of his family have been raising cows for milk in the town of Pawlet, Vermont (population: ~1,500) since 1831. In that time, the Leach clan has seen the commodity market for milk rise and fall more times than anyone could count. These days, small farms like Woodlawn are beholden to whatever prices giant dairy buyers set, and most can't make the economics work. So Seth and his wife Kate decided to do something different.
From Vermont Public, September 24, 2024
A new video series from Vermont producer and host Rocket features a visit with Seth Leach, the seventh-generation farmer at Woodlawn Farmstead in Pawlet, to explore how vertical integration has been essential for this small dairy farm’s survival.
From Seven Days, June 25, 2024
One mid-April Thursday, Seth Leach began his morning at 3 a.m. as usual in the milking barn of his family's seventh-generation Pawlet farm. The rest of his day was far from standard for a Vermont dairy farmer.
Over the next 16 hours, Leach drove 200 miles from Woodlawn Farm in the Mettawee Valley to the Upper Valley, then on to Montpelier and Chittenden County. On the way, he stopped at 11 co-ops, specialty markets and restaurants, leaving a trail of cheese samples and sales materials behind him like Hansel and Gretel's crumbs.
