Myron and Janet Martin, Peace Hollow Farm

Washington County, MD

Myron Martin will tell you flat out, “I gotta work harder to be quiet than most folks. But I like to share what God has taught us in our journey of agriculture.  We’re very blessed.” A lot of the Martins' success has to do with faith in God, plain hard work, and a willingness to keep an open mind.

The Martins have always pastured their cows on the farm’s tillable acreage. Calling the acreage tillable is kind of a stretch, Myron says. The valley they farm in western Maryland is only a mile wide and surrounded on three sides by the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Trail is only a half mile away.

“When folks visit for the first time, they’re awestruck by the beauty of the place, but then the logistics kick in and they say, ‘You actually farm this?’ The land is steep and highly erodible, so it doesn’t make sense to cultivate crops, but it’s great for pasture.”

The Martins have been tremendously blessed with their hard-to-work land by letting the cows do the ‘tilling’. Additionally, they quit feeding grain. Now that the cows get strictly forages, the milk tastes better and the cows have better body condition. “Six years ago, before we were organic, we were getting 20,000 pounds of milk. Now we’re getting 12,000 lbs and the economics work out way better. It’s counterintuitive to most folks, but if I can get 12,000 pounds of milk without using any grain, I’m tickled to pieces and so are our finances. Going without grain really simplifies things.”

The Martins typically milk around 80 cows, which consist of various breed ‘crosses’. They have their original Holstein genetics crossed with Jersey, Brown Swiss, and Swedish Reds. “Our cows were always pretty healthy because we always pastured. But health problems went to almost zero once we transitioned to organic. I rarely have to do anything when the cows calve. I go out in the fields or the barn and there are the calves. Cows last longer because they’re not pressured to do anything more than they’re meant to do.”

“We’re very particular about our pastures. I want a certain percentage clover and certain percentage grass. It’s all about learning to balance the land with the cows. I realized we can do more by just encouraging the right plants for the soil. I’m 48 years old, and in the last six years since we went organic, I have learned more about farming than I did my whole life.” 

Myron’s dad bought the home farm in 1968 and Myron and Janet took over in 1988. “It’s been a real journey from the mid-80s on,” Myron says. “I was open-minded to learn about better ways to farm. People complain about the system, but they don’t do anything about it. If we’re not willing to learn, nothing will change.”

“As a child I watched my dad using those jugs of chemicals and he’d say ‘It’s okay to use this stuff because they say it’s okay to use it.’ But somewhere in my young mind I was thinking if that stuff’s so poisonous, why is it okay to put it on the soil? Even though my dad wasn’t organically minded, when I took over the farm, he encouraged me to go grazing because he felt like it was the future. He died at 71. My granddad died at 71 too, so maybe it’s just genetic, but I can’t help thinking of my dad using those chemicals back when they didn’t know about prevention and precautions. He sprayed from the open seat of a tractor and breathed that stuff in like crazy. It makes me wonder.”

Myron’s mom lives close by and she is really encouraged by what is happening on the farm. “We work with Maryland graziers’ networks and we like to have folks out to the farm to see what we’re doing,” Myron says. “I invited my Mom to come for one of those gatherings and she was tickled pink.”

Janet and Myron have raised four children of their own; the youngest of them is still at home. But the Martins also spent years fostering kids, as well, and adopted four of them at infancy. All four of those boys, Kraig, Kent, Josiah, and Dylan live at home and help Myron with the chores, except for Dylan, who is handicapped. So far as Myron can tell, the boys love the farm.

“We home school, too, so it’s all happening right here. They’re getting to the age where I’m gonna have to start making a transition plan if they think they want to keep farming. If they don’t stay interested and want to do something else, I know someone will take over the place. It’s too profitable to look the other way.” 

“Once we transitioned to organic and we had to decide who to sell our milk to, we went with Organic Valley,” Myron explains. “It wasn’t the sales pitch that won us, it was the principles of the co-op. Whenever I hand out Organic Valley coupons to consumers, I hear the same thing: They buy Organic Valley because of the co-op’s principles. Consumers know what they want, and they expect us farmers to be able to produce it. We used to know how, but we went through a whole generation of losing that knowledge and wisdom. Now we have to take back the ground that we lost.”