Virginian Follows Dream of Starting a Dairy Farm

by LeighAnne Manwarren

Chester Beahm is living his life-long dream of owning his own dairy farm, Fields of Grace Farms in Remington.

“Being a dairy farmer was a goal of mine, and I worked for somebody for awhile, then I was able to do it and it has been a tough something of years but we are still at it,” Chester said.

Being a dairy farmer since 1976, Chester’s dream to own his dairy business began when he saw his father work as a dairy farmer as a young child, he said.

Chester said he rents 300 acres of land where the Jersey-bred cattle graze in season and feed them with hay and wheat.

“We are not an organic farm because it takes at least three years to be certified, and you have to have certain equipment to maintain the farm as an organic farm, which isn’t really worth it since we do not actually own the land,” said Carol, Chester's wife.

While Fields of Grace Farms is not organic, Chester said they do not use growth hormones and are very careful about testing the milk for antibiotics and bacteria before it ever gets loaded onto a truck.

“We process 25 percent of the milk to cheese into the farm and we still ship milk,” he said.

Starting in 2005, Chester and his wife have been making cheeses to add value to the products that they sold.

Out of the 17 varieties of cheeses Fields of Grace Farms produces, four of those cheeses are raw milk cheeses, something that most family-owned dairy farms do not do, Carol said.

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services inspect the cheeses every three months, where they pull two cheese samples and test for salmonella and E. coli, Chester said.

“The making the cheese is fun, the marketing is fun, the certification process is not so much fun,” Carol said.

While Chester has been on crutches since December 2010, he and Carol continue to work at his dream.

“That’s my choice and that’s what I like to do,” Chester said. “I think there are a lot of people who go up and down the road everyday to go to work and wish that they can try doing something else but are too scared to death to try it.”

Chester said you can’t gauge your markets every week by the best markets.

“You have to take your rainy days, your cold days and your windy days, all those together, it’s all part of it,” he said.

Oak Marr Recreation Center hosts the Oak Marr Farmers Market weekly, from 8 a.m. to noon Wednesdays.