By Eric Jenks, Special to NEAFA
This month’s NEAFA member highlight is with Todd DuMond, the CEO/Owner of DuMond Farms, based out of Central New York. “We’re a family farm,” said DuMond. “I grew up on the farm. We started as a hobby farm with beef cows in 1980, up in Saranac Lake. When my dad moved his dentistry practice to Central NY in 1985, we transitioned to being a crop farm in Fleming, NY, just outside of Auburn. After college, I decided to make Agriculture my career. We started processing soybeans to be roasted for feed and nutrition in 2003.
Before returning to his family’s farm, DuMond received his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in Boston. I worked in corporate America for a few years after school, and in the oil fields in Houston, TX,” said DuMond. “The work and the pay were great, but in my heart, I missed farming. I love the diversity of things that you get to do on a daily basis with farming. Getting to be outside and grow crops is very rewarding for me. When I started focusing on the farm, we had 200 acres that we worked. Now we have 6,000 acres. The farm employs 45 people for processing and production, and we have an additional 45 people that work in our trucking department. We have roasted soybeans since 2003, and we added cornmeal in 2014, non-gmo cornmeal in 2017, and in 2020, we added extruding and extracting soybeans for soybean meal and oil. In 2022, we started processing high-oleic soybeans as well, which can be made into meal, roasted beans, as well as oil. Our latest addition is a biodiesel plant that came online in 2024.”
DuMond sees plenty of potential growth in New York and beyond. “We make a lot of feed, and we’re currently processing twenty percent of all soybeans grown in New York State right now,” said DuMond. “Our facilities have the potential to process three quarters of the soybeans grown in New York however. When we started, farms were having to import a lot of soybeans to the state, the market was very poor and limited. It’s a great protein source for the dairy market. Creating a local business that could add value for both the grower and the dairy market was a logical progression of my family’s crop farm. I pride myself on strengthening the agricultural community, and I sit on and have sat on a number of national boards over the years. I understand the value and how essential it is to have a group that can advocate for farmers and agribusiness and for the work that they do. NEAFA is a great group, and their mission makes sense to support as they continue the growth and advocacy of our industry here in the Northeast.”
DuMond’s vision for the future is a self-sustainable one. “I think increased efficiency and sustainability and stability in the markets is our goal,” said DuMond. “We’re very efficient with the movement, processing, and distribution of our feeds and we get good production out of the feed. We’re working on tracking carbon and being an integral part of that. We are a local connection here in Central New York. We want to adding value to the crops grown here and produce a cost effective and consistent feed. There have always been issues in feed transportation at large when you need to bring in something from a distance. Being a local supplier, we don’t miss a delivery to our clients. We’re moving forward in a climate smart culture, and we need to be smart and sustainable with every aspect of our food production. We have and hope to continue to run our entire fleet of trucks and tractors on biodiesel produced from the oil that we produce from our soybeans. It’s a hyper efficient closed loop system when you can fuel the trucks and tractors that produce food with biodiesel that you’ve produced off your own farm. Having a closed loop and locally focused system is an idea that we are looking forward to continuing and growing in the future.
For more information on DuMond Farms and what they do, please visit www.dumondfarms.com