Straus Family Creameries
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Straus Family Creamery is a successful, innovative, and progressive small family run organic dairy in the western United States. In 1993, their farm became the first certified organic dairy west of the Mississippi River. Their small, family-owned dairy farm and creamery began when Bill Straus started farming in 1941 with just 23 cows on the shores of Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore, 60 miles (96 km) north of San Francisco, California. Ellen Straus, his wife, read the book Silent Spring by internationally recognized American scientist Rachel Carson in the early 1960s, and began their family's strong commitment to environmental sustainability. They now have been farming for more than 65 years. The family states that "We still consider our most important responsibility to be stewardship of the land."[1] The Straus Creamery is an example of a small farm that has managed to remain in existence, despite the trends in the US for small family farms to go under in the face of the pressures of large operations. In Marin County where the Straus farms are based, the number of dairies is down from a high of 150 in the 1960s to just 29 remaining today. As consolidation and larger operations become the rule, most of the small family farms are disappearing. Some farmers, like the Straus Family, turned not only to growing the food, but also to marketing it themselves directly to the public. "We like the idea of purchasing locally grown products to support local farmers, because we believe the country will be sad to lose this part of itself."[5]
From humble beginnings, they have since expanded to include milk from other neighboring certified-organic family farms, from the Tresch and Wilson families. They are the only California milk producer that runs both an organic dairy and an organic creamery. Straus Family Creamery now sells their diary products in 11 western states, including milk, European Style butter, European-Style yogurts, and cheeses, to now also ice cream. They are one of the very few dairies to still offer milk in glass bottles, but also offer a small percentage in recyclable pastic for those not wishing glass.[2] Most dairies today homogenize their milk, however, Straus Family Farms sells unhomogenized milk with the cream still layered on top. In addition to this they practice a unique pasteurization technique called the HTST method, the high temperature short time method, heating the milk to 170 degrees °F (77 °C) for 19 seconds.[3] This yields a shorter shelf life (roughly 16 days) than typical ultra pasteurization at 280 degrees °F (138 °C)for 2 seconds (yielding up to a 60 day shelf life). Their stated reason for sacrificing the reduction in shelf life for sale at the market is that "The benefit of pasteurization, destroying all bacteria that are harmful to health, is assured while still keeping our product as fresh-tasting as possible. You will notice a fresher, less-cooked flavor with milk that is pasteurized at a lower temperature, about the temperature of a cup of nice toasty hot chocolate." Once opened and refrigerated, and if all storage and handling conditions are equal, all milk regardless of pasteurization technique retains its freshness for the same length of time, around 7-10 days.
Contents |
[edit] The Farm
The farm is 660 acres (2.43 km2) of organic land with about 270 milking cows. Each cow has over 2 acres (8,093 square meters) of pasture to roam. One of the other organic family farms that provides milk has about 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) of organic pasture with 850 milking cows. The adjacent family farm has 1,600 acres (6.47 km2) of organic pasture for their 210 milking cows. The newest farm family has 180 organic acres available to the 10 milking cows they currently have for organic milking, and will be adding more organic milking cows every month until they reach about 90 milking cows. In total they have access to over 1,300 organic milking cows roaming more than 4,000 acres (16.2 km2) of organic pasture lands. They have two types of dairy cows: Holstein (2/3 of the herd) and Jersey (about 1/3 of the herd). The average age of the cows is 6-7 years old and they have some cows as old as 10 years. On a conventional dairy farm, cows usually stay in the herd only until they are about 5 years old. The farm states "We believe that our animal husbandry practices reduce the stress on the cows which helps to ensure a longer, healthier life for our cows. Plus, we really like them! Because of our status as an organic milk producer we must have organic calves; however, it is very difficult to buy calves from another source due to the limited number of calves raised as organic throughout the state. As a result, we prefer a ‘closed’ herd so that we can breed our own organically-fed cows with organically-fed bulls. You might say we’re matchmakers of a different ilk."
[edit] Conduct and farm practices
Straus creameries has a rigorously high code of conduct for their farms, in addition to following all organic standards:
[edit] Herd Management[4]
Young cows (heifers) graze in the fields. Milking cows graze on a rotational basis during the spring, summer and fall. Today, only 10-12% of dairy cows in America are grazed, according to 2005 statistics from U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, Madison, WI. The farm states that "A recent USDA study shows that cows who graze produce five times more of a cancer-fighting compound, Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) than cows fed a conventional diet." and also that "Access to open pasture reduces the threat of communicable diseases caused by overcrowding and that their cows also get valuable exercise by grazing on pasture."
[edit] Balanced Diet
They work closely with an animal nutritionist to guarantee that their herd gets a properly balanced diet of grains, hay, legumes, home-grown silage and fresh grasses.[6] The cows are vegetarians and are not fed other animal parts, extracts, or leavings.
[edit] Milking
They milk the cows three times a day, in order to reduce stress and increases production. Milking takes about 5 minutes per cow and each cow produces about 8 gallons (30.3 liters) of milk per day. "The most important aspect of keeping cows healthy is to minimize their stress. We accomplish this by providing clean bedding (we add clean rice hulls regularly), room to move (our cows graze from Spring through Fall when the fields are dry), a balanced diet, plenty of space wherever they are, a cooler climate (which is more comfortable for cows since they don't sweat) and individual bedded stalls for each cow."
[edit] Closed Herd
They maintain a "closed herd" on the dairy. Meaning they never bring in any outside animals to the farm. "This is important because by bringing in animals from outside, we run the risk of bringing in new diseases including Mad Cow disease, Hoof & Mouth disease and many new infections and viruses. Maintaining a closed herd is not a common practice on all dairies (organic or conventional), but one that we feel is important in order to keep our cows healthy and safe."
[edit] Organic Practices
[edit] No Hormones or Antibiotics
Treating cows with hormones, including Bovine Growth Hormone, rbGH, is strictly forbidden by organic law. Straus does not treat their cows with antibiotics; when necessary, they utilize aspirin and homeopathy. "In general, medical treatment guidelines on an organic dairy are as follows: vaccinations are allowed; antibiotics and hormones are not allowed. Aspirin is allowed for use on organic dairies and is given to cows to reduce fever and inflammation. In addition, we use homeopathy to treat our cows when they get sick. Homeopathy is essentially diluted herbs. On an organic dairy, cows are not given antibiotics unless it is the only way to save a cow's life. At that point an organic dairy is allowed to keep the cow, but withhold its milk from sale for a period of 90 days. At any of the Straus Family Creamery dairies, if a cow is given antibiotics to save its life, it will then be removed permanently from the organic milking herd."
[edit] Certified Organic Land and Feed
They do not use any herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers, at all.
[edit] Environmentally Safe Plant
They work hard to conserve water, recycle wherever possible and strictly avoid using environmentally detrimental chemicals.
[edit] Organic Certification
All products are produced in accordance with USDA Organic Regulations and are third-party certified by Quality Assurance International (QAI).
[edit] Natural Pest Control
The've been using an electric-powered bug zapper which the cows walk under as they enter the barn to be milked. A solar-powered zapper is used near covered drinking troughs out in the fields.
[edit] Farm use of alternative energy sources
[edit] Methane digester creates electricity to help power the farm
They are also pioneering several other farm practices, going far above and beyond even most typical high standard organic dairies. For example, after a 5-year process, they now create electricity with a methane digester.[7] The digester captures naturally occurring gas from manure and converts it into electricity. With this new system, they say they can generate up to 600,000 kWH per year. They also tarp the manure ponds to eliminate the release into the air of methane, a natural by-product of manure. According to the 2003 U.S. Department of Energy Report on Greenhouse Gases, agricultural sources (primarily animal waste) account for approximately 3% of greenhouse gas emissions. A cow can generate 120 lbs (53.4 kg) of solid and liquid waste per day, which translates to 40,000 lbs. (17,800 kg) per year per animal. While all the waste at Straus dairy is composted and reused as fertilizer, the system provides additional and far-reaching benefits. The project is funded by California's SB5X alternative-energy grant program.
[edit] Bio-diesel
Not only do they power their dairy with the electricity generated from a methane digester, they now run their feed truck on vegetable oil.[8] They've also converted the back-up generator (something every farm requires) to bio-diesel. They have been able to convert one of the gas tanks to vegetable oil and a diesel powered feed truck to accept it. They hope in the future to convert all the farm vehicles to be able to use bio-diesel. "Bio-diesel replaces gas gallon for gallon and with our usage we hope and expect to replace our current usage of 550 gallons (2,082 liters) of gas per month. Bio-diesel is biodegradable, nontoxic and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics. It is a renewable resource, based on soybean and other oil crops that are grown anew each year. In our case, we are currently using coconut oil"... "Using bio-diesel requires no engine modifications, only perhaps a few hoses. Performance is the same in terms of torque, horsepower and miles per gallon. Bio-diesel also cuts down on emissions. Particulate matter, carcinogenic compounds, carbon monoxide and total hydrocarbons are all reduced. It's all a good thing!" In addition to this they also have a family electric vehicle.
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
Link to Straus Family Creamery home page [9]
 |
This article is uncategorized.
Please help improve this article by adding it to one or more categories, so it may be associated with related articles (how?). Please remove this tag after categorizing, but not before. |
