Sam Demulling stands with Holly, a Jersey cow, on Friday, June 7 with another Jersey, named Kim Cowdashian, at the family’s small farm located off of Machias Road, named House on the Hill Farm. After finding their first cow made more than enough milk for themselves, they became milk producers by getting licensed with all the requirements to sell dairy.
SNOHOMISH — Sam and Tara Demulling have a small enough dairy herd that they named their cows Holly, Blossom and Kim Cowdashian.
On 12 acres of land, the Demullings in 2019 founded House on the Hill Farm off of Machias Road. They have three Jersey cows and around 20 goats, and offer raw milk from their farm stand.
“We want to keep it to a manageable size,” Tara Demulling said. “When you’re on a small acreage, you have to keep your facility small.”
She said the family farm sort of evolved into a dairy farm. Acquiring their first cow in 2019, and their first calf in 2020, they realized an issue. “At three gallons a day, we had more milk than what we knew to do with,” Demulling said. They got a license to sell their milk, following the same licensing requirements as all other dairies.
They own and operate a dairy farm in an area that has seen a reduction in dairy farms in recent decades.
In 1992, a USDA agriculture census showed 141 farms in Snohomish County had dairy cows. In 2022, the most recent agriculture census available showed just 19.
Linda Neunzig, agriculture manager with Snohomish County, cited two factors in the declining number of dairy farms. The first was many farms had between 75 and 150 head of dairy cattle, which economically didn’t work. The second was the loss of the Cedergreen company, which canned peas in the town of Snohomish.
“Everybody who grew up in Snohomish knew that smell,” Neunzig said. “When that cannery went away, that was a big loss to agriculture in Snohomish.”
Don Bailey of Bailey Farm said a lot of dairy farmers grew peas. They’d ship the harvested peas to Cedergreen and use the remains to feed their cattle. “It was more or less free feed for the dairymen.”
The Bailey family has been farming in the Snohomish area since around 1918. In the early 2000s, they sold the herd. Bailey said that the combination of low prices and the loss of the pea contracts were the reasons he got out of the dairy business.
As the number of dairy farms in Snohomish County has declined, so has the number throughout Washington state.
In 1993 the state had around 1,300 dairy farms. Currently less than 300 remain, said Dan Wood, executive director of the Washington State Dairy Federation. Whatcom County has the largest number of dairy farms while the largest number of dairy cows are in Yakima County.
He said Whatcom and Yakima counties have a good climate for dairy farming and good infrastructure.
“Those areas are not encroached with excessive development,” Wood said.
While the number of dairy farms in the state has reduced, the number of dairy cows has remained stable. The United States Agriculture census from 1992 states there were more than 242,000 dairy cows in Washington. In 2022, that number’s grown slightly to more than 255,000.
In Snohomish County, though, there were 23,665 cows in 1992, and 12,722 cows in 2022, according to agriculture census data.
The USDA considers a dairy farm as any operation with at least one milk cow, whether or not they produce any other items, USDA spokesperson Jodi Halverson said in an email.
Ryan Bartelheimer, an agriculture engineer with Snohomish County Conservation District, said dairy farmers either try to find an economy of scale and go as big as they can, or otherwise go really small. The reason some farmers go small relates to their family’s quality of life.
Nathan Whalen photo
Blossom and Kim Cowdashian stand with one of the newest additions to House on the Hill Farm — Kim's calf Rayne.
Neunzig said that due to better genetics and better nutrition, cows are producing more milk. Wood added advances in technology have allowed cows to produce more milk on the same amount of land.
She described the fewer dairies as an “evolution” as some farms diversified their operations. Several historic dairy farms changed their business over the years. Stocker Farms has Christmas trees and blueberries; Swan’s Trail Farm has U-pick apples and strawberries.
Neunzig said every agritourism operation has some sort of food production. “It’s just the evolution of the industry,” she said. The high number of dairy farms came at a time that lacked a demand to purchase food locally, a local food movement, and a lack of farmers’ markets.
She said there are more types of food in production on a smaller amount of land.
In the mid-1990s Bailey opened a composting facility for yard debris. He uses the compost on his farm and sells the remainder to the public.
Once Bailey sold his herd in the early 2000s, he opened a U-pick fruit and vegetable garden that currently comprises around 80 acres. The farm opens in June when strawberries ripen and remains open until October when pumpkins and winter squash are ready for harvest. His daughters operate the U-pick operation which also includes potatoes, sweet corn, raspberries, and pickling cucumbers.
Thomas Family Farms used to have 900 head of milking cows and 900 heifers for a total of 1,800 cows, owner Marv Thomas said. They’ve been composting since 1987 and have Topsoils Northwest. They began diversifying into agritourism in 2011, however they still raise heifers for other local farms from 12 to 24 months of age and then they return them to the farmers and get a new group. John Deck in Monroe is the biggest farm they do this with.
Thomas Family Farms has six acres of 30 different kinds of sunflowers, eight acres of sweet corn, 24 acres of pumpkins, and grows grass on 180 acres which is used for feed for the heifers they’re raising.
Bob’s Corn, currently owned by Bob and Sarah Ricci, got out of the dairy business in the early 2000s. Bob’s dad purchased the farm in 1969. Bob Ricci said they got out of the dairy business because they couldn’t afford the millions of dollars needed to fund a lagoon for manure runoff that was a requirement of state regulations.
They transitioned to an agritourism farm that features a corn maze and pumpkins. For three months, Bob’s Corn hires nearly 250 seasonal employees and the agritourism brings in 90 percent of the farm’s income, Bob Ricci said.
“None of us thought it would turn into what it is,” Bob Ricci said.
The farm also grows 20 acres of sweet corn, 14 acres of field corn, 45 acres of pumpkins, six to eight acres of sunflowers, two acres of squash and 50-60 acres of hay for horses.
“If somebody would drive in here today, it would look like a traditional farm,” Ricci said.
