Honoring a SC and National Pioneering Dairy Hero — Pelzer’s Tom Trantham Jr.

Last week, Tom Trantham Jr., “an innovator and leader in the development of the present day sustainable agriculture movement,” was posthumously inducted into The South Carolina Dairy Hall of Fame at a luncheon hosted /organized by the South Carolina Farm Bureau and the Clemson University Cooperative Extensive Service. Mr. Trantham Jr. may be best known nationally for the 12 Aprils Grazing system, “a profitable, environmentally sound grazing system for dairy cows,” that produces nutritionally superior milk, and for his leadership of Operation Haylift that brought relief to southeastern farmers during the severe 1986 drought. He was also the first dairy farmer in South Carolina to bottle his own milk and sell it direct to consumers.

In its October 2025 letter announcing to the Trantham family the upcoming induction honor, the SC Farm Bureau wrote, “[i]t is well known known . . . that Mr. Trantham was influential and supportive of the dairy industry. His commitment and tireless dedication benefitted the entire agriculture industry and youth in South Carolina.”

In a video shown at the luncheon, colleagues who had become his friends over the years said of Mr. Trantham, “[h]e was a ‘get it done person’… he had a whole lot of ‘want to’ and the words ‘can’t’ and ‘quit’ were not in his vocabulary. . . . [He] had a heart for service, a heart for agriculture [and] a heart for others.”

Mr. Trantham Jr’s induction into The South Carolina Dairy Hall of Fame caps a long list of awards and recognitions he received during his lifetime, including in 2021, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the Palmetto, which he received for his work on Operation Haylift.

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“ ‘Tom Trantham was an innovator and leader in the development of the present day sustainable agriculture movement and SARE. . . . The methods and practices he developed and taught have been adopted by several generations of dairy producers who are working towards agricultural sustainability. He was a courageous farmer and an important teacher of sustainable agriculture.’ ”

Nancy Roe, former SSARE AC Producer who worked with Mr. Trantham in the SARE program. Tom Trantham Blazed A Sustainable Ag Trail for Small Livestock Producers, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, October 2022

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12 Aprils Method: Follow Those Cows! Trantham, using confined feeding in the 1980s, was on the brink of financial ruin, when one day in 1989, out of sheer frustration, he let his herd graze freely on his pasture. As he recalled in numerous interviews and as explained in the film shown at the luncheon, seemingly a miracle happened. Having had their fill of the grass, the cows wandered back in and produced significantly more milk — on average two pounds more of milk per cow. Trantham repeated the experiment with even better results. From this beginning, Trantham, together with Clemson, fully developed the rotational grazing system of 29 paddocks with different forages for his herd of about 90 cows. The idea being that each paddock offers new forage year-round equal to the quality that’s available in spring/April. Trantham measured the amount of protein in the forage the cows were eating and developed a planting regimen, including the use of a no-till tool, to grow the various forages. He eliminated chemical pesticides, chemical herbicides, and chemical fertilizers.

In the mid-1990s, Trantham’s 12 Aprils Grazing system was the subject of a three-year study funded by the USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program [“SARE”]. The 12 Aprils study “was one of the most important and most impactful projects throughout the 40-year history of the SARE program,” recalled Dr. Jean Betrand in the video shown at the Dairy Hall of Fame luncheon. Dr. Bertrand, now Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Clemson, was the Clemson assistant professor who wrote the original grant proposal — her first one — for the 1993 SARE study.

According to a SARE article written shortly after Mr. Trantham Jr.’s death, “[the 1993 study] showed that grazing cows instead of harvested feed translated into cost savings, over $9,600 for an average of 70 cows that grazed a total of 292 days. Additionally, the study found that cattle that graze consume a higher quality product, choosing the lushest, most nutritious parts of the plant and leaving the least digestible parts. Had the cows been fed the same crops as harvested feed, they would have been fed a much lower quality product and would have had to expend energy digesting lower quality forage.”

In 2002, SARE honored Trantham with its first-ever Patrick Madden Award for Sustainable Agriculture for having “perfected a profitable, environmentally sound grazing system for dairy cows.” 

Not only did the 12 Aprils system result in, you guessed it, happy cows with on average three-year longer life span, tests at Utah State University showed the resulting  milk is four times richer in CLAs (Conjugated Linoleic Acids) than milk from “conventional[ly] fed cows” and has “more balanced levels of Omega 6 and Omega 3” as well as “an increased level of beta-carotene and Vitamins A and D.”  

Trantham devoted energy and time to helping other dairy farmers develop rotational grazing for their herds. In interviews still available online, while gladly sharing the forages he had had success with, Trantham was always careful to say that farmers had to figure out what would work with the conditions of their land and environment and that he was not mandating a one size fits all solution.

“From Our Grass to Your Glass” . . . Low and Slow and Not Homogenized:

In another innovation, Trantham decided to bottle his own milk and sell it direct to consumers. Because his cows were grazing, he didn’t need to store feed and so converted a silo into a bottling plant. His longtime friend and colleague and SC Farm Bureau board member, Bruce Rushton, who nominated Trantham for the Hall of Fame, explained in the film shown at the induction ceremony, Trantham was “the first one in modern times [in SC] to bottle his own milk and sell it directly to consumers, and now we have seven plants in the state doing the same thing.” Trantham used to share that his milk only traveled 48 feet and therefore was carbon-friendly.

On a tour of the Happy Cow Creamery in October 2025, I learned that Trantham’s “low and slow” pasteurization (which means a lower temperature is used, but it must be held for 30 minutes) helps preserve the milk’s vitamins and enzymes. Higher heat pasteurization allows producers to go faster (less than a minute for UHT milk), which produces milk with a longer shelf life, but with a reduced nutrition content as compared to “low and slow” milk. Trantham also decided that Happy Cow Creamery Milk® would not be homogenized, meaning the fat molecules remain intact and are not split up, which helps the body digest it and absorb the nutrients.

"Hay Tom," Operation Haylift: The 1986 Operation Haylift, for which Mr. Trantham is so well-known and from which he earned the moniker “Hay Tom,” was a response to the intense heat and drought that had resulted in more than $1 billion dollars of losses for farmers. Trantham was a spokesman for the farmers’ plight and organized hay to come to the southeast “by every means of transportation possible,” recalled South Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers in a 2022 interview given shortly after Mr. Trantham Jr.’s death.  Describing the Haylift in a 1986 article, the UPI wrote that “77 boxcars with 20 tons of hay — the ‘Hoosier Hay Express’ — rolled out of Indianapolis for South Carolina. The CSX railroad said it was hauling the load for free.” Later, 500 farmers from around the nation attended the Thanksgiving dinner Mr. Trantham and his family hosted as a heartfelt thank you for the help they had provided.

A Tradition of Innovation and Building Community Continues: Tom Trantham III and his wife Ashley, a former member of the SC legislature, run Happy Cow Creamery and 12 Aprils Farm with their family and a dedicated team. They are continuing to demonstrate the Trantham heart for others and for innovation. In 2024, when Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc and devastation, the Trantham family, Happy Cow Creamery, and their team were instrumental in a Community Crisis Response, providing respite in the form of “free MREs, water, ice and other essential supplies” to those in need. In an effort reminiscent of Tom Trantham Jr.’s 1986 Haylift, they spearheaded a Hurricane Helene Hay Haul to help North Carolina farmers, which included asking people to donate Quick Trip gas cards to cover the costs of transporting the hay.

The Creamery store that Mr. Trantham Jr. started, which carries all manner of delicious products, also helps other emerging local merchants, including new favorite Maverick’s Donuts. The Creamery and 12 Aprils Farm are well-loved in the community. In October 2025, nearly 7,000 people attended the Saturday Happy Cow Creamery annual fall anniversary celebration. Numerous people, including school children, tour throughout the year, and some even shop in Creamery-related costumes. With more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and 40,000 on Facebook, you can follow along as people get excited about seasonal offerings like eggnog, Christmas flavors of ice cream, and fresh strawberry milk in summer.

In 2026, the Creamery is scheduled to break ground on a new milking facility that will feature two robot milkers and a cooler space for the cows to relax when it’s hot, because happy cows mean a happy life and a happy community. Recommended Reading: If you found this piece meaningful, the following articles offer further insight and inspiration: Regenerative Agriculture: Healthier Food, Healthier Soil, Healthier Planet https://www.elisaszweda.com/post/regenerative-agriculture SRI: The Alternative and Regenerative Method of Rice Cultivation You May Have Never Heard Of: https://www.elisaszweda.com/post/sri-the-alternative-regenerative-method-of-rice-cultivation