Chooses the Mohawk Valley to Demonstrate Healthy, Sustainable Farming

Tom Vaughan intends to be the motivating force to bring farmers together to overcome what he describes as a food crisis in the United States, and he is doing it right here in Fulton County and neighboring Montgomery County. Vaughan and his wife, Patricia, opened Westmeadow Farm and Dairy to show that it is possible to produce natural food in a clean, sustainable, and conscious way.

After working in the aerospace industry for 40 years, including founding his own multinational firm, Vaughan has returned to his roots, having grown up on a dairy farm in Ireland. Westmeadow Farm is Vaughan’s project to prove that it is possible to restore healthy ways of farming and eating. He is on a mission to change the way that farmers produce crops and treat animals and to connect people with the food they put in their bodies.

From the time he was a young boy, Vaughan watched his family’s farm deteriorate as new, artificial fertilizers replaced traditional, natural ones, and the soil became depleted. This was the beginning of what Vaughan views as a crisis in the treatment of animals, soil quality, and people’s view of the agriculture industry. Vaughan plans to turn this around. To that end, he purchased a farm in Canajoharie and a building for his creamery in Johnstown to have a proving ground for what’s possible. “They can come here and see and believe that it can be done,” he said

Vaughan purchased the former Spray Nine plant, an 80,000-square-foot building in Johnstown that had been vacant for a decade. He invested $5 million to transform the 3.25-acre site into a manufacturing facility and a retail store for his dairy products. He used local contractors for labor and equipment whenever possible. “It was a pleasant surprise to find highly-skilled sub trades like plumbers and electricians, and their costs to do business are quite competitive”, Vaughan said, noting that his company spent 82 percent of its budget for capital expenditures in New York State. Having locally made products means that he has support for those products readily available nearby..

At Westmeadow Farm, Vaughan has a milking herd of 150 Jersey cows whose comfort comes first. The cows roam freely between fresh pastures and composted-bedded pack, an alternative, loose housing for dairy cows that offers them good comfort for lactating. Their cozy barn has thermally-heated floors. Milking happens via a state-of the-art robotic milking system designed to reduce stress by rewarding the cows with treats when they give milk. The basic idea is that happy cows produce higher volumes of healthy milk.

Vaughan sees the artisan cheese market as a growing one. “It’s becoming a social thing, with people hosting cheese nights and enjoying wine or beer with it,” he said.

In addition to its online store, Westmeadow plans to open an on-site store in its newly renovated building in November 2020. There, customers will indulge in gourmet coffees and fresh baked goods from local farms and bakeries at a coffee counter, or in warmer weather, they can head outside to the deck to enjoy an ice cream cone on a sheltered porch. The store will stock not only Westmeadow’s products, but other organic products produced by Vaughan’s fellow farmers.

Vaughan has plans to add an educational component to the creamery to fulfill his mission of educating the public about healthy, sustainable, high-quality food. There will be plant tours and a viewing room where visitors can watch cheesemakers at work. Large video screens will livestream cows being robotically milked and goats being born at the farm, with an equivalent video system for visitors at the farm to watch creamery operations. A shuttle will transport visitors between the farm and the creamery. He plans to build a microfarm outside the creamery where children can see the animals that produced the milk used to make the dairy products that they eat. Other plans include special events like courses for home-cooking enthusiasts. All these amenities are designed to make the creamery and farm a day-long destination.

That milk is transported “within comfortable trucking cost” down to Westmeadow’s creamery in Johnstown. Workers pump it into vats, including the main cheese vat that holds 2,000 gallons of milk. From there, it is crafted into gourmet cheeses, yogurt, ice cream, and butter.

The various cheeses, made from both cows’ and goats’ milk, are crafted with the highest quality in mind, catering to those with a taste for artisanal products. “It’s a product that’s a cut above,” Vaughan said. Cheddar cheeses in 28 flavors from strong and aromatic to mild age anywhere from six months to 10 years in a cooler before being shipped out to over 100 specialty grocery stores or to customers worldwide. The longer the cheese ages, the more flavorful it is. Flavors include hickory-smoked, seriously super sharp, bacon-peppercorn, green olive and garlic, tomato basil, roasted red pepper and olive, wild onion, garlic, and dill. Workers package wheels of chevre, the goat’s milk cheese, in small cardboard boxes, hand-tied with string for an artful presentation.

Vaughan sees the artisan cheese market as a growing one. “It’s becoming a social thing, with people hosting cheese nights and enjoying wine or beer with it,” he said.

“When we came here, we were so pleasantly surprised by what we saw,”

Vaughan originally intended to locate his farm in Connecticut, where he already had a small farm and office. But he needed grasslands to feed his animals, and in addition to the high property costs in Connecticut, he didn’t find the availability of land that he required. “When we came here, we were so pleasantly surprised by what we saw,” Vaughan said. It then occurred to him to locate his farm project in New York entirely. “We came here by accident—it wasn’t by intent, and because we were welcomed the way we were and so many things were put forward to help us, we just decided to put the whole operation here instead, and we have no regrets,” he said.

Johnstown turned out to be an ideal place to do business. “We see Johnstown as a growing center that’s not yet mired in big city issues like restricted car parking space or lack of suitable buildings and office accommodations,” Vaughan said. “It’s possible to arrive and secure very good tenancy arrangements and storage,” he said, noting that he was warmly welcomed to the city by the mayor and local residents.

Vaughan was also highly pleased with how city officials and code officers worked with him. “They could not help us more than they have—it’s extraordinary,” he said. “They’ve gone out of their way to be flexible and find ways around challenges. From a town hierarchical management perspective, I don’t think we could have found better than Johnstown.”

In addition to this type of support, he found a rich resource in the Fulton County Center for Regional Growth. “Multiple packages were offered to us,” he said. “They couldn’t have done more for us. They offered us all kinds of startup and employment programs. There are multiple programs and financial incentives available.” Having this kind of help available allowed Vaughan to concentrate on getting his manufacturing facility operational. “We have so many distractions and challenges that having an independent organization that is focused on what we need takes the weight off our mind. It’s a shared burden there,” he said.

Other attractive aspects of Fulton County for Vaughan are reasonable taxes, rents, and costs of procurement and materials. “Operating in Johnstown is not an expensive proposition,” Vaughan said. “I certainly came with the expectation that it would be more expensive to do business here.”

Once he proves that he can make his products in a natural, sustainable way without GMOs, Vaughan plans to reach out to other neighboring farms and begin the process of pooling and processing milk, creating a new alliance of farmers. This network will allow individual farmers to come together to overcome the challenges that they could not surmount alone. “If those wells of energy get together and use their creativity, anything’s possible. We want to harness that, he said.”

Vaughan knows he has a great deal of work ahead of him, but he is completely confident that he can be successful in his mission, starting right here in Fulton County. “We need to get about the business of bringing clean food back to the table. The stewardship of the land—that’s our future—that’s crucial,” he said.

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