WILMINGTON, N.C. — When Brittany Stallings, the owner of Creek's Edge Family Farm, bought her first cow over six years ago, she never pictured her backyard turning into a small, family-run dairy farm. She now finds herself up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to milk the cows, get the chores done, and start her day.

“When it actually comes to managing a lactating animal, the amount of nutrition that they need and the care, sanitation is huge,” Stallings says. “I think that it takes a lot of time and planning and I still learn something new every single day.”

There's a big difference between the dairy farm she operates and large scale agriculture, and that distinction is important to her. She has a close bond with all of her animals and takes the product and her methods very seriously – emphasizing the health of the animal over anything else. Her "girls", as she lovingly calls her cows, produce 30 gallons of milk a week.

“You have a lot of people who think that because you raise animals, they have the large scale operation mindset to where animals are mistreated,” Stallings says. “And if I could bring people out here – these animals, they literally are like dogs, coming up to you wanting to be petted.”

She would love to expand even more, but says the laws in the state of North Carolina make it very difficult to be a small production dairy farmer. The state doesn't allow the sale of raw cow's milk for human consumption, which limits both how it can be labeled and where she's able to market it.

Being a small-time dairy farmer is currently just a hobby for her because even with the huge demand for her products, unfortunately, there's more heart than money in it. As far as she knows, she's the only dairy producer in an hour radius around Wilmington, but she believes if enough people would get involved, small production could one day replace large scale agriculture.

“It's a lot of fun, it's very rewarding but like I said, it's a lot of hard work also,” Stallings adds. “But I do enjoy it and I would very much so like to see it expand.”

Sustainable farming is something she wishes more people would take up for all of its benefits, including education and knowledge on where your food comes from and understanding the work that goes into the products you consume.