an aerial view of a farm

A bird’s eye view of J-Team Dairy farm in Virginia.

This is the story of a multigenerational dairy farm in Culpeper, Virginia making large strides towards sustainability and expansion. J-Team Dairy was established in 2002 by the Elgin family. They milk 220 cows, with a focus on strong herd genetics and high milk quality. The family farms 175 acres, growing crops including corn, rye, and triticale, and approaches farming with sustainability and animal comfort in mind.

a person holding a thermometer in a small creek

Liz Chudoba, Water Quality Monitoring Initiative Director, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, tests the water temperature of the farm’s stream.

The Alliance has worked with J-Team Dairy farm in the past, providing a 220-tree forest buffer, as well as water quality monitoring, to improve soil quality and water health. The forest buffer sits along a tributary of Potato Run within the Rappahannock River watershed, and the water quality monitoring taking place there is able to track changes over time. With data like temperature, clarity, macroinvertebrate populations, and more, the monitoring will show the impacts of the projects implemented on the farm.

“Dairy is one of the top commodities of the state of Virginia, so it’s important that the Alliance help these farmers with the cost of implementing these conservation practices in order to keep them running sustainably.” – Christian Anderson, Virginia Agriculture Projects Manager, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay

As the buffer matures, the stream’s temperature will become more stable, the water’s turbidity will be more consistent due to less sediment entering the waterway, and streambanks will experience less erosion.

a baby sitting next to a tree inside of a plastic protective tube

Six-month-old Halle Elgin, who may one day be the 6th generation farmer at J-Team, sits next to a newly planted tree.

Now, the farm’s bedded pack barn is set to be fully constructed in June. The old barn, the “Red Roof Inn” was demolished and the site has been graded/marked. Two manure pits have also been decommissioned, one of which will become pollinator habitat. Heavy use areas (HUAs), animal walkways, multispecies cover crops, and more will be installed. All of these practices will increase animal comfort, improve the farm’s environmental impacts, and reduce the amount of sediment and nutrients entering the Rappahannock River watershed, which is all paramount to J-Team.

a bee sitting on a white flower

Pollinator health is just as important as farm health when it comes to the sustainability of the Chesapeake.

Other benefits to the farm include lower veterinary costs due to better herd health, and higher crop yield with practices like manure injection. The expansion of the Alliance’s agriculture projects into Virginia was an effort to take our corporate partnerships upstream in Pennsylvania to other regions of the Bay.

“I think farmers have that responsibility–that we need to protect the environment. We need to be sustainable. We need to hold on to our natural resources. That’s our job. It starts with us.” – Molly McWilliams, J-Team Dairy

Thank you to our partners, Culpeper Soil and Water Conservation District, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Piedmont Environmental Council, Maola Local Dairies, and dedicated volunteers for making these practices possible for a cleaner Bay.

Learn More About the Alliance’s Agriculture Efforts