Farm that supplied milk to Houlton dairy is selling off its cows

SMYRNA, Maine — The farm that supplied northern Maine’s only dairy is getting out of the milk business as well.

After 75 years in operation, Lilley Farms Inc . on Smyrna Center Road will sell 130 dairy cows at the end of the month and stop producing about 9,000 pounds of milk a day.

It was a decision the owners knew was coming after Houlton Farms Dairy decided it would no longer process milk at its Houlton facility.

“We’ve known this was happening and we have been preparing for it,” said Lilley Farms co-owner Perry Lilley. “We got together last spring with Houlton Farms and decided on a date we would sell our cows and they would stop bottling milk. It was a mutual decision.”

Both Aroostook County businesses will continue operating — Houlton Farms will still make ice cream, butter and lemonade and Lilley Farms is still planning a new farming venture — but it will be the end of a six-decade relationship between the two.

“It’s been a great relationship, they are very good people,” Lilley said, adding that they will miss their daily encounters.

With alternative plant-based milks like soy, almond and coconut gaining popularity, milk sales have been falling for decades , according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Add to that, milk prices that have not kept pace with costs, farm consolidation and advancing and expensive technology, smaller dairy farms cannot keep pace.

Lilley said it’s a rough road for farmers, adding that there are only four conventional dairy farms left in the County, including his farm.

“It’s getting harder to make a living,” he said, pointing to the consolidation of small farms into large dairy producers. “Milk prices haven’t kept up and we’re up here in northern Maine and we are kind of isolated.”

It was a similar scenario for Houlton Farms. Eric Lincoln, the general manager of the family business, said they can no longer survive the losses.

“We haven’t had the sales,” Lincoln said in a previous interview.

Perry Lilley’s father started Lilley Farms in 1946 and he joined his father in the business in 1971. Today, Perry Lilley and his son Daniel Lilley co-own the farm, he said.

Stopping milk production is not a bad thing, he said, adding that they put a lot of hours in every week.

While they are still talking about what they will do next, he said they are still planning and it has not yet been finalized, but they want to do something with animals that will utilize their land and buildings.

“We are going to do something that takes less time,” he said.