Kraig Smith of 550-acre “Nolandia Farm” in Catlett has deep roots in Fauquier County’s agricultural industry. His grandfather, George Noland, operated a dairy on the property from the early 1950s until 2006 before transitioning to beef cattle. As a middle and high schooler, Smith was active in 4-H and FFA, showing both dairy and beef cows before earning an associate’s degree from Virginia Tech in Agriculture Technology in 2013.
The goal was to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, and in 2014 Smith launched his operation on a leased facility in Calverton just down the road from the family farm. In November 2023, he achieved his dream of building a new facility and moving onto his family’s property. The new 150-cow dairy is fitted with robotic milkers that disinfect, clean, milk, and collect important health data all on its own.
“We basically went from milking in 1970 to milking in 2020 all at once. It’s been quite the transition for us. We are currently milking 93 cows with our goal to get up to about 120. It is a state of the art and is the only robotic dairy in the county. These systems are becoming more popular across the state just due to labor issues more than anything else. It’s hard to find someone that wants to milk cows twice a day, 365 days a year.”
This facility investment was made possible due to a variety of funding sources include a Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) grant to create their compost bedded pack facility.
“We start off with sawdust in a big wide area that the cows can lay wherever they want to. As they use it, we begin to rototill the bedding, so it starts composting. And then we add new sawdust on top to keep it clean. This dual-purpose system acts as our manure storage and bedding for the cows.”
Smith’s operation also uses a manure lagoon that catches the wastewater, also funded by NRCS and John Marshall Soil & Water Conservation District. Without these financial incentive programs, Smith says its almost impossible for a young farmer to get started.
“10 years ago, I got started with a Young Farmer Loan through the Farm Service Agency (FSA) with a two percent interest rate,” said Smith. “I was at a leased facility and had to buy all my own equipment. They were great to work with.”
The cost to build out the facility on Nolandia doubled from when he first investigated funding eight years ago. While these programs are extremely generous, he hopes they increase to keep up with inflation that is plaguing the farming community just like everyone else. Input costs like electricity and fertilizer have exploded, while the market prices of milk and grains continues to fall.
“This system has given me some flexibility. I am more of a manager now than basically feeling like an employee of the cows,” Smith joked. Smith has no employees besides the help of his wife, Heather and parents, Kalvyn and Lisa. That valuable extra time is now spent with their first child, born on July 25th.
Hoping to be a role model for other farmers in Fauquier County and beyond, Smith is an active member of the Farm Bureau board, the Fauquier County Agricultural Advisory Committee, and the Virginia State Dairyman’s Association board. Through these groups he can keep a pulse on issues plaguing dairy farmers across the state.
He sees why counties are eager for the revenue promised by data centers but worries about it getting out of hand and losing more farmland to development. “There has to be a give and take.”
“Solar installations in particular eat up a lot of farmlands,” he said. “It is getting tighter by the day with all this competition for land, but we are better off than others across the state. Farmers in the Shenandoah Valley are really struggling over land right now and the rental costs per acre have really gone up. Luckily, we aren’t as affected right now but I don’t want to see us turn into Prince William County.”
Smith farms 100 acres just over the line in Prince William County and 40 acres of it has recently come up for sale. He anticipates it quickly being bought up by a developer and taken out of production.
Despite the adversity, Smith has remained focused on his goals. “I knew from a young age I wanted to get back in the dairy industry. You need to have the drive to learn and keep up with the changing technology.”