Macon Reporter

With June being National Dairy month, deputy director of events and engagement Paige Ehrat Buente is letting Illinoisans know how her family operates Dair-E-Land Holsteins dairy farm.

“We do everything we can to make sure the milk produced is the best milk for Illinois consumers,” Buente said in a video posted to YouTube. “We want to know what we’re eating, what we’re putting in our body, that it’s as fresh as it can be.”

Buente says it’s been that way ever since her great grandfather, Godfried Ehrat, came to the U.S. from Switzerland in the 1870s and started the family farm. Buente is a fifth generation dairy farmer operating with a stable of roughly 300 cows on more than 900 acres of land in Shobonier.

“The milk from our farm goes to the people of Illinois,” Buente said. “Farming and having a dairy farm is a fulltime job to the max. My dad, my uncle and our employees work every single day. Christmas, Thanksgiving, it doesn’t matter, the cows have to be milked.”

Buente said Dair-E-Land’s list of clients practically runs the gamut.

“Our milk goes to school kids, restaurants, for ice cream a bunch of different things,” she said.