Vold Family
The Vold family farm was homesteaded in 1899 by Anna and Elling Vold. It was a diverse farm consisting of dairy cows, hogs, laying chickens and row crops. The Volds were early adopters of technology. Cows were milked by hand, then buckets and a step saver, followed by a pipeline and milk cooler. As the farm evolved, the Volds focused on dairy cows and exited the hogs and chickens. In 1994, the Volds expanded from 48 milk cows (mostly Guernsey) in a tie-stall barn to 300 Holstein cows housed in a six-row free stall facility and milked in a double-8 herringbone milking parlor. An S-Corp was formed for estate planning purposes to make it easier to transfer the farm from the third to the fourth generation of the family.
Today, the Vold farm is known as Dorrich Dairy, Inc. (from DORothy and RICHard who are the third generation on the farm) and is home to just under 500 dairy cows that are housed in a nine-row free stall barn and milked by seven Lely Astronaut milking robots. The barn floor is cleaned by five Lely Discovery vacuum robots. Manure is separated, and then composted in a DariTech compost drum. The composted manure is used for bedding or composted further and sold as a soil amendment to gardeners. Youngstock is custom-raised off the farm. The family farms over 600 acres of owned and rented land that provides forages for the dairy herd.
The dairy is owned by the fourth generation of the Vold family. Co-owners are Brad and Suzanne Vold, along with their children Anna, Erik and Katy, and Greg and Charity Vold and their children, Adric, Roran and Braigh. Charity also owns and operates Kiddo Kountry Day Care on the home farm.
The Vold families are involved in the Glenwood Lutheran Church community, participate in dairy promotion activities, and volunteer with many school booster groups. Greg is on the board of Pope County Farm Bureau and serves on the local Housing and Redevelopment Authority. Charity is president of the Pope County Daycare Association and is on the Minnewaska PTO board. Brad is a Regional Council Representative for Land O’ Lakes and a delegate for Genex. Suzanne serves as a director for the Midwest Dairy Association and the National Dairy Board and is a member of the Environmental Stewardship Committee at the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.