Billings Farm & Museum's Keep Local Farms Initiative Successful

Woodstock, Vermont – When Billings Farm & Museum opened for its 28th season in May, it joined forces with local dairy farmers to launch the Keep Local Farms initiative.

The Farm & Museum is pleased to announce that the 2010 contribution to Keep Local Farms is $4,850.00 – twenty-five cents of the retail price from each ice cream sold in the dairy bar, combined with a match of visitor contributions. Billings was the first museum and major attraction in Vermont to participate in the program and the first in New England to match consumer contributions to Keep Local Farms.

“Keep Local Farms is one way for businesses and consumers to help support our dairy economy,“ says Diane Bothfeld, Vermont's Deputy Secretary of Agriculture. “The goals of this initiative are to promote the benefits that dairy farms bring the local community and economy, generate a stable income for dairy farmers, and secure the farmlands of today for future generations. We certainly appreciate Billings Farm & Museum's recognition of the important contributions Vermont dairy farmers make to our state.”