‘As farmers, our passion is to feed people’: The struggle of operating Montgomery County’s last dairy farm
Brown Cow Creamery in Mount Airy offers ice cream, cheese, beef and more
By
Danny Chung-A-FungJuly 16, 2026 10:19 a.m.
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Nestled in Mount Airy, in the uppermost corner of Montgomery County, sits Brown Cow Creamery, the last dairy farm in the county.
The 60-acre property is surrounded by fields of corn, orchards of apple trees, and farms growing other crops. A couple brown cows were grazing in the open field on a warm July Monday, with a few more nearby cooling off in the shade of some trees.
It’s a sight that used to be far more common in Montgomery County. According to the King Barn Dairy MOOseum in Boyds, since the mid-20th century, the number of dairy farms in the county has dropped from more than 500 to just one.
Laurie Savage, who runs Brown Cow Creamery with her husband, Kevin, remembers when the county was filled with dairy farms.
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“It was a really important dairy county, but obviously over time a lot of development has come in … and knocked out a lot of farms that used to be more downcounty,” Savage, 54, told Bethesda Today on Monday.
Savage and her husband grew up on dairy farms: Laurie in Frederick County and Kevin in Dickerson, where the couple lives. Brown Cow, which sits on the 93,000-acre Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, has about 20 cows they milk on a regular basis. In addition to ice cream, Brown Cow makes cheese and sells eggs from their hens.
Savage says keeping the lights on is a struggle.
“Dairy farming is really difficult,” Savage told Bethesda Today. “What we sell here doesn’t cover all the bills. We need fuel for the tractors. We need fuel for the vehicles driving back and forth from our house. [Costs of] fertilizer and seed have really, really killed us over the years.”
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“It’s basically negative [profit] all the time,” Savage said.
This means the Savage family – Laurie, Kevin and adult children James and Catherine – can’t dedicate their whole days to the creamery. They all have full-time jobs in addition to the work they put in on the farm.
Laurie Savage works for Future Harvest, a nonprofit that educates farmers and advocates for sustainable agriculture. While Laurie Savage said she is happy she gets to work with farmers, it means a lot of extra hours to keep the creamery running, which sometimes means making ice cream at 11 p.m.
She starts the process of pasteurizing the milk in the morning before work. After work, she often makes one of the many flavors of ice cream that is sold in the creamery — the standard chocolate and strawberry as well as the less expected such as pumpkin and coffee. Scoops are sold for $4.99 Friday through Sunday from noon – 6 p.m. (and until 5 p.m. on Thursdays).
The Savages used to farm in Dickerson, where they still sell eggs, meat, and cheese to customers by appointment, and have been working on the Mt. Airy property for just more than a year.
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Until recently, there was another dairy farm just down the road from their Dickerson property, but Savage says that owners got out of milking cows just a few months ago.
That makes Brown Cow the last dairy farm in the county, according to Peg Donnellon, the President of the Board of Directors of the King Barn Dairy MOOseum.
The move to Mt. Airy allowed Brown Cow to set their own prices on items, and they inherited creamery equipment and a farm store from the previous property owners.
“For many years, we milked a larger herd of cows, and the milk truck would come to the farm and pick up our milk, then we would receive a check for the milk for a price set by the government,” Savage told Bethesda Today.
“This is not a particularly sustainable way to do business … [until] this opportunity came along to move across the county from our farm in Dickerson.”
But despite the infrastructure at the new location, the revenue that Brown Cow brings in has not been enough to keep up with the rising costs. And changes in the agriculture business model have not helped either.
“There’s been a lot of big conglomerate companies in agriculture right now,” Savage said. “It’s less price competition, so the price of inputs has really gone up a lot… [meaning] we’ve had to change a lot with what we plant to feed the cows.”
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 1), whose district includes where Brown Cow is located, has visited the creamery. She mentioned some of the efforts the county is doing to help promote agrotourism, especially through Visit Montgomery.
“We’ve been trying to expand agritourism opportunities and talk to the farmers about what would make it easier for them to help make profit at their farms,” Luedtke said, “because it’s hard. Farming is not cheap, it is expensive.”
But despite the many challenges of operating and maintaining their dairy farm, Savage says hard work is a farmer’s DNA. They hope to find new ventures to get their products out on the market – one of their ideas is potentially creating prepared foods made with their cheeses.
“As farmers, our passion is to feed people,” Savage said. “Providing food to the public is absolutely important. That’s why we do it.”
Nestled in Mount Airy, in the uppermost corner of Montgomery County, sits Brown Cow Creamery, the last dairy farm in the county.
The 60-acre property is surrounded by fields of corn, orchards of apple trees, and farms growing other crops. A couple brown cows were grazing in the open field on a warm July Monday, with a few more nearby cooling off in the shade of some trees.
It’s a sight that used to be far more common in Montgomery County. According to the King Barn Dairy MOOseum in Boyds, since the mid-20th century, the number of dairy farms in the county has dropped from more than 500 to just one.
Laurie Savage, who runs Brown Cow Creamery with her husband, Kevin, remembers when the county was filled with dairy farms.
“It was a really important dairy county, but obviously over time a lot of development has come in … and knocked out a lot of farms that used to be more downcounty,” Savage, 54, told Bethesda Today on Monday.
Savage and her husband grew up on dairy farms: Laurie in Frederick County and Kevin in Dickerson, where the couple lives. Brown Cow, which sits on the 93,000-acre Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve, has about 20 cows they milk on a regular basis. In addition to ice cream, Brown Cow makes cheese and sells eggs from their hens.
Savage says keeping the lights on is a struggle.
“Dairy farming is really difficult,” Savage told Bethesda Today. “What we sell here doesn’t cover all the bills. We need fuel for the tractors. We need fuel for the vehicles driving back and forth from our house. [Costs of] fertilizer and seed have really, really killed us over the years.”
“It’s basically negative [profit] all the time,” Savage said.
This means the Savage family – Laurie, Kevin and adult children James and Catherine – can’t dedicate their whole days to the creamery. They all have full-time jobs in addition to the work they put in on the farm.
Laurie Savage works for Future Harvest, a nonprofit that educates farmers and advocates for sustainable agriculture. While Laurie Savage said she is happy she gets to work with farmers, it means a lot of extra hours to keep the creamery running, which sometimes means making ice cream at 11 p.m.
She starts the process of pasteurizing the milk in the morning before work. After work, she often makes one of the many flavors of ice cream that is sold in the creamery — the standard chocolate and strawberry as well as the less expected such as pumpkin and coffee. Scoops are sold for $4.99 Friday through Sunday from noon – 6 p.m. (and until 5 p.m. on Thursdays).
The Savages used to farm in Dickerson, where they still sell eggs, meat, and cheese to customers by appointment, and have been working on the Mt. Airy property for just more than a year.
Until recently, there was another dairy farm just down the road from their Dickerson property, but Savage says that owners got out of milking cows just
a few months ago.
That makes Brown Cow the last dairy farm in the county, according to Peg Donnellon, the President of the Board of Directors of the King Barn Dairy MOOseum.
The move to Mt. Airy allowed Brown Cow to set their own prices on items, and they inherited creamery equipment and a farm store from the previous property owners.
“For many years, we milked a larger herd of cows, and the milk truck would come to the farm and pick up our milk, then we would receive a check for the milk for a price set by the government,” Savage told Bethesda Today.
“This is not a particularly sustainable way to do business … [until] this opportunity came along to move across the county from our farm in Dickerson.”
But despite the infrastructure at the new location, the revenue that Brown Cow brings in has not been enough to keep up with the rising costs. And changes in the agriculture business model have not helped either.
“There’s been a lot of big conglomerate companies in agriculture right now,” Savage said. “It’s less price competition, so the price of inputs has really gone up a lot… [meaning] we’ve had to change a lot with what we plant to feed the cows.”
Councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 1), whose district includes where Brown Cow is located, has visited the creamery. She mentioned some of the efforts the county is doing to help promote agrotourism, especially through Visit Montgomery.
“We’ve been trying to expand agritourism opportunities and talk to the farmers about what would make it easier for them to help make profit at their farms,” Luedtke said, “because it’s hard. Farming is not cheap, it is expensive.”
But despite the many challenges of operating and maintaining their dairy farm, Savage says hard work is a farmer’s DNA. They hope to find new ventures to get their products out on the market – one of their ideas is potentially creating prepared foods made with their cheeses.
“As farmers, our passion is to feed people,” Savage said. “Providing food to the public is absolutely important. That’s why we do it.”
Brown Cow Creamery, located at 28600 Ridge Road in Mt. Airy, is open Thursdays from noon – 5 p.m. and Fridays-Sundays from noon – 6 p.m. They also have pick-ups by appointment at their Dickerson farmstand – visit their website for more information.
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Originally published at Bethesdamagazine