Florida's Farmer of the Year

Jerry Dakin

Of the 43,000 farmers in Florida, Myakka City’s own Jerry Dakin of Dakin Dairy Farms was named the 2022 Florida Farmer of the Year by the Florida Farm Bureau. Dakin and his brothers represent the second generation of the Dakin family dairying business, whose local roots stretch back to 1973. Dakin’s entrepreneurial acumen, along with a commitment to sustainable farming practices that center his cows’ health and happiness, have contributed to Dakin Dairy’s growth into a booming operation. This success is sustained by the high quality of Dakin product and increasing demand for them, even as Florida’s agriculture industry shrinks.

Dakin has watched Florida agriculture’s troubling contraction as chief dairyman on one of only 150 dairy farms left in the state. He feels grateful for the advocacy platform offered by the visibility from his Florida Farmer of the Year award.

“We’ve lost so much agriculture here in Florida, but we’re still gaining people,” he says. “We used to have 30,000 acres of tomatoes in this county, but I think we’re down to 7,000 acres now, with the rest coming from Mexico. To me, it’s scary because once a country can’t feed itself, it becomes powerless.”

With daily tours and a summer camp program, Dakin Dairy Farms have long been a center for education about where food comes from and what it means to work on a farm. Dakin will be the first to tell you that his career path is no easy hayride, but he’s nevertheless driven to ensure he’s not the last of his kind.

“I enjoy the young people who come out to work here. The greatest thing is the common sense that they learn—and common sense isn’t so common anymore,” Dakin says. “We farmers aren’t doing it for the money, that’s for sure—because sometimes, it’s a lot of hassle. But it’s about that next generation, passing an inheritance on. And to me, the greatest inheritance is knowledge.”

As Florida’s Farmer of the Year, Dakin entered the running for the Swisher Sunbelt Ag Expo’s Farmer of the Year, along with Farmers of the Year from the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

“That’s an amazing honor,” Dakin says. “It’s sort of like a fraternity of outstanding farmers. We meet once a year and, wow, what an opportunity. One thing I do love in this business is relationships, and it’s really enjoyable to meet those farmers, all of them the best there is in their states.”

Dakin says he’s been called a “fighter.” His fighting spirit has been put to the test by the COVID pandemic, when shutdowns and supply chain snarls forced Dakin Dairy to dump up to 10,000 gallons of milk and cream per day. But this fall, he squared off with the greatest test of his life. When Hurricane Ian hit the farm, two-thirds of its structures were destroyed, totaling $1 million in property damages. Arguably the heaviest losses were the lives of 250 milk cows that perished in the storm’s deadly floodwaters and winds.

“This business is challenging, and it’s grown me unbelievably with my strength and everything else,” Dakin says. “I don’t accept ‘no’ very well, because milking cows has to happen seven days a week, 24 hours a day, no matter if it’s a hurricane, a power shutdown, or anything. It’s got to keep going.”

After Ian, Dakin Dairy opened its farm market and café as a community center for neighbors to stock up on donated essentials and get a hot meal. Without clean water or fresh food for its surviving cattle, the farm put out its own call for assistance, receiving such a strong response that they were able to host an agricultural disaster relief hub that supplied other area ranchers and helped them maintain their herds’ health in the storm’s terrible wake.

“The biggest thing for people to realize is, keeping your food local is a big positive,” Dakin says. “When a hurricane comes to the coast, it’s pretty nice there’s a farm only 20 miles away where you can come out and get your milk. If there were none in Florida, you wouldn’t get it for dang weeks.”

> Dakin Dairy Farm: 30771 Betts Rd, Myakka City; 941-322-2802; DakinDairyFarms.com