217 | Raw Milk, Fall Seasonal Dairying & the Gallagher eShepherd with Dakota Finch

217 | Raw Milk, Fall Seasonal Dairying & the Gallagher eShepherd with Dakota Finch

From Grazing Grass Podcast | Rotational Grazing, Soil Health & Profitable Livestock Farming by Grazing Grass

April 1, 2026 · 1h 28m

About this episode

Dakota Finch shares his journey from the Air Force to becoming an organic grass-fed dairy farmer, discussing the challenges and successes of his farm.

Dakota Finch didn't grow up planning to be an organic grass-fed dairy farmer. He grew up on his grandfather's conventional dairy in upstate New York, left for the Air Force, started researching nutrition for his family, and found himself reading about the organic dairy market on a computer in Korea during downtime. That curiosity eventually led him back to farming — on his own terms. In this episode, Dakota shares how he went from a six-year Air Force career to launching Finch Family Farm in 2017, milking 40–50 grass-fed organic cows in central New York, and recently opening a farm retail store selling raw milk, beef, pork, chicken, and eggs. He's honest about where things are working and where they're not — from the farrowing struggles with his son's pig operation, to the challenge of making quality hay on marginal ground nobody else wanted, to the marketing learning curve that comes with selling direct. This is a practitioner's episode: real questions, real tensions, no pretending it's all figured out. What we cover: • How Dakota got his start through an internship on a grass-fed organic dairy and the relationship that made his first herd purchase possible • Fall seasonal vs…

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