There was a time when a woman involved in agriculture was regarded as “the farmer’s wife” or “the farmer’s daughter.”
She was not afforded recognition as “the farmer,” even when tragedy had befallen her husband or parent, and she had to keep the farm going.
History bears out that women have successfully run farms, many while also caring for children. My own father suffered a heart attack when, as the youngest of five daughters, I was just 6 months old. My mother kept the cows milked, the stock fed, the barn cleaned and the crops tended as he recovered, but she was still “the farmer’s wife.”
According to a 2025 report, “Women in Agribusiness,” more than a third of all farms in the U.S. are run by female farmers. Across the world, women are 80% of the farm workforce. Most are direct small-scale livestock operations, rather than large-scale crop farming. And many run the farm while raising a family.
Heidi VanDyke Hendrickson is one such agribusiness woman. She began leasing Green Vale Farm and Creamery in Coopersville, Mich., from her father, Tim, in 2019 and became owner in 2022. Heidi and her husband, Tyler Hendrickson, who owns a trucking business, have a young daughter and son.
Change is constant. And yet, as Heidi builds on Green Vale’s long history, one thing hasn’t changed. It was known 80-plus years ago as a “producer-handler-distributor” operation with “Direct from Farm to You” emblazoned on delivery trucks. Heidi has built on the farm-to-table focus.
Direct to consumer
Green Vale has its own store on the grounds where customers can find cheese made in the farm’s own creamery, eggs, steaks, summer sausage, pork, chicken and a line of skin care products made from tallow.
All this comes from several hundred animals raised on the farm — steers, dairy cattle of multiple breeds, hogs and chickens. The store is open most afternoons and on Saturdays. One full-time and two part-time employees work with Heidi.
“Agriculture was not new to me,” said Heidi, returning to the farm from picking up meat processed for the store, her young son chattering in his car seat. “I did not know how to run a retail store or make cheese. I am a learn-as-I-go person. I tried and failed, or I tried and succeeded, and that’s how our farm has come to be what it is today. Our animals are hormone- and antibiotic-free, and we grow a lot of our own feed.”
Green Vale was established by the Noyes Latham Avery family prior to the 1920s, but the land was settled in the mid-1800s, and an Italianate Victorian mansion was built there circa 1860.
Avery was a businessman and banker in Grand Rapids, Mich., creating his elaborate farm with a water tower, extraordinary barns, a carriage house, pools, pergola and bridges. At some point, the farm was sold, but the buyer defaulted on the loan.
New beginning
When Gerrit Buth came to Michigan from Holland with his father, John Buth, in the 1930s, the men, as the saying goes, were acquainted with “the business end of a dairy cow.”
John purchased a farm, and despite his father’s hesitations about taking on the challenge, Gerrit acquired Green Vale. The young man tackled, with vastberadenheid (determination), his mission to bring Green Vale back to life.
“Green Vale makes use of its barns and outbuildings,” Heidi said. “Another four barns on a separate farm were once part of Green Vale. The Buth family has kept those for a horse farm.”
The biggest and most visible of the Green Vale barns is popular with photographers and artists and for good reason. It isn’t every day a bright green barn of that size and design comes into view.
The barn features a central milking parlor, essentially connecting a gambrel-roofed barn at either end. A small, matching-design, covered entrance at the center gives the barn a distinct “E” appearance when viewed from the road.
In a 2022 feature for the Coopersville Historical Society, Dennis Barrett writes that Gerrit Buth’s wife Pauline, and his sons John and Jim, as well as hired help, grew their dairy herd from 70 to 300, with around 200 in production at a time.
John and Jim were just young boys when they, too, learned the business end of a dairy cow. Much to the family’s relief, in 1943 a salesman convinced the reluctant Gerrit to purchase milking machines.
John and Jim took over Green Vale in the 1960s, with John handling crops and Jim in charge of cattle and milk delivery to stores in Grand Rapids. They witnessed the transition from glass to carton to plastic in milk containers and the bottling of raw milk to regulated pasteurization.
They were also, Barrett reported, known for keeping their cattle comfortable, believing that “a happy cow is a productive cow.” That belief was backed up by numerous awards for butterfat production and high earnings on the sale of their cattle all around the world, with one cow selling for $46,000 in the 1950s.
The brothers eventually sold Green Vale to Jim VanDyke, and he sold it to his daughter.
“I am one of seven children raised on a farm near here. Once farming is in your blood, it is always there,” Heidi said. “I love ag. It is all I have ever known. I raised calves for a couple of customers as a teen, worked four or five part-time jobs, and went into farming. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”