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Dairy producer shares passion for industry with consumers
Indiana dairy producer Jill Houin has a passion for teaching consumers about the dairy industry and the farmers caring for the animals.
“I absolutely am humbled to be able to share that story from our farm to teach people about the dairy farm families that are out there,” she says. “It’s amazing what they do, how they recycle, how they reuse, and I think it’s very important.”
A New Jersey native, Houin was new to the industry when she married an Indiana dairy farmer in 2004. She retired from teaching in 2016 and became calf manager of the family’s operation, Homestead Dairy.
“I had no idea before I married into it that dairy farming is not a job, it’s a passion, it’s a lifestyle, and they live every moment for the cows, the land, and to produce nutritious milk,” she says.
Houin manages the farm’s social media and website and gives farm tours to highlight life on a modern dairy farm.
She says the technology on dairy operations is incredible. She uses a methane digester as an example. A digester at Homestead Dairy converts manure into electricity for 1,000 homes an hour. A partnership with the University of Notre Dame collects food scraps for the digester, keeping thousands of pounds of food waste out of landfills.
